


Yeast Wars

by miniconsuffrage



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Abuse of Rubber Duck, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Arson, Cheetor is Baby, Copious Mention of Bread, Decepticon Mafia, Gen, Human AU, It's Just Beast Wars But With Bread, Multi, Mysterious Child Aquisition, The Stakes Are Approximately 0.3 Inches High But Everyone Is Just As Dramatic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2020-12-31 17:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miniconsuffrage/pseuds/miniconsuffrage
Summary: Optimus Primal and a small team of bakers set out from Philadelphia to Providence, Rhode Island, to establish a new branch of the Maximal Bakery. They aren't expecting Megatron, their long-time rival and son of the founder of competing bakery The Predacon, to assemble his own team and follow them there in the hopes of upstaging their business.An epic tale of baking, betrayal, romance, mafia connections, and parent-teacher conference infiltration ensues, loosely following the plotline of the original Beast Wars series.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, y'all. The big one. This is my magnum opus. My Sistine chapel. My Eugenesis. I will never write anything more important than this fic.
> 
> I've been writing the rough draft of Yeast Wars since February of 2018 and it is almost finished, coming in over 200k words. Season three is halfway to being drafted, and season one is in the process of revision. I plan to post one chapter a week, with the caveat that there may be short breaks between seasons. Some of this needs a lot of revision and rewriting and it's a slow process.
> 
> This fic is very important to me, and I want it to be the best it can be, so I welcome constructive criticism and being alerted to typos.
> 
> We already have a full illustration of the cast!!! Go see them [here](https://megatronwillreturn.tumblr.com/post/176764670501/sothis-is-what-ive-been-doing) and [here](https://megatronwillreturn.tumblr.com/post/176764670501/sothis-is-what-ive-been-doing)! They are quite literally the most beautiful things I've ever seen. 
> 
> Lastly, acknowledgments: there have been a small handful of wonderful people who have read the rough draft as I wrote it or let me bounce ideas off them. They know who they are and I cannot thank them enough. But there are three I have to specifically name, because they've been here since the very beginning and whom I think fondly of as The Squad: [Manfred](https://megatronwillreturn.tumblr.com/), [Skiel](https://scorpflame.tumblr.com/), and [Treble](https://trebletwenty.tumblr.com/). (Extra shoutout to Manfred for being The Yeast Wars Assistant and for dictating this fic's summary to me.) They are all so talented and have so many good ideas, and I never would have gotten this far without them. Love you guys!!!

The drive from Philadelphia to Providence was only about five hours, but it felt like so much longer when you had Rattrap and Cheetor in the backseat.

You would have thought they were children, the way they argued and poked at each other. About two hours in Rhinox instituted a talking ban, making them listen to an audiobook on the history of yeast in silence. In his head, Optimus thanked him. This move was stressful enough without the inter-team strife before they’d even opened.

It was all coming together now. Months of planning and preparation, but it was only now that they were on their way that it felt real. Rhinox had already put in a considerable amount of work— he and Optimus had made a trip up there to choose a location and and sign a lease a few weeks ago, and while Optimus had returned to Philadelphia to keep working and do the last few tasks HQ required of him before he left, Rhinox stayed behind to start getting the place into working order. He’d returned two days ago to help pack up the U-Haul.

And now, here they were. Officially moving.

The drive wasn’t too bad once they got past New York City. Before he knew it, Optimus was exiting I-95 and driving through the city before finally pulling up in front of an empty storefront at the bottom of an office building in downtown Providence.

“That’s it?” Cheetor asked as he pressed himself up against the window to get a better look. He was breaking the talking ban, but Optimus allowed it.

“That’s it,” Optimus agreed.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Rattrap commented. It didn’t, yet. There wasn’t much they could see through the big windows except part of a counter and some tables and chairs stacked off to one side.

“Just wait until the sign gets here,” Optimus said. “That’ll change everything.”

They drove past, headed to the storage unit they’d rented so they could unload the big trailer and switch it with one that was easier to manage on a city street. Half of what they’d brought was for the bakery, and the other half was personal, what they’d each gathered up from their homes to box up and make the move with them. Only Rhinox had secured a place to stay so far, so most of their things would live here until they’d found somewhere to go.

They unloaded the trailer as quickly as they could so that they could return it and turn in for the night, but they stopped at the bakery again on the way back to Rhinox’s apartment. Cheetor and Rattrap hadn’t been inside, and they all wanted to see the work Rhinox had done.

Well. Cheetor and Optimus wanted to, and Optimus was the one driving, which gave him the authority to ignore Rattrap’s complaints that it “wasn’t going anywhere.”

They parked, Rhinox unlocked the front doors, and the four of them stepped inside.

The front was bare, but there was a lot of potential—almost floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect space to put display racks and a decent seating area. It just needed some interior decorating.

“We keeping this?” Rattrap asked as he went behind the counter to inspect it.

“Probably not,” Rhinox said. “That’s just what came with the place. We’re still waiting on a glass counter and the sandwich prep area to be delivered.”

Cheetor was already peaking his head through the door to the back. “Oh, cool!” he exclaimed, and jogged over to inspect their brand new ovens.

By the time Optimus got to the door, he was sticking his head inside one of them. “Are these bigger than the ones at HQ? They seem bigger.”

“I think they’re just newer,” Optimus said.

The kitchen wasn’t completely delivered or put together yet, and they hadn’t brought in any actual baking supplies yet, but that would happen more quickly now that the four of them were together. As it was, Cheetor had to poke his head in every cabinet before he could be persuaded to leave. By this point, Rattrap was getting antsy.

“You ever heard the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’?” he asked.

“I’m almost done,” Cheetor protested.

“And _I’m_ almost ready to pass out,” Rattrap countered. “So let’s get moving!”

“Come on, Cheetor,” Optimus prodded. They’d all had a long day, and had gotten sweaty unloading the trailer. The last thing he wanted was for bickering to start up again.

Finally, they made it back to Rhinox’s new apartment and prepared for bed. Optimus claimed the only air mattress, leaving Cheetor and Rattrap to the couches. They got ready for bed, briefly met Rhinox’s new housemate, and devoured the pizza nearly as soon as it was delivered.

There was plenty more to do before they could open their doors to the public, but now that the four of them were all here, it would go by faster.

“D’you guys really think the bakery is going to do well here?” Cheetor asked, once the lights were all off and the house was quiet.

“I do. HQ wouldn’t have sent us here otherwise,” Optimus said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Cheetor said. He was quiet for a while, and Optimus thought he’d fallen asleep. “Once we get going do you think I’d be able to start doing cakes or real pastries or something?”

“You ain’t a pastry chef, kid,” Rattrap said.

“I know, but I’ve been practicing,” Cheetor said.

“Watching how-to Youtube videos, you mean.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Cheetor argued, sounding a little hurt.

“We’ll see what happens once we get started,” Optimus said, trying to cut off further argument. “I’m glad you’ve been practicing cake decorating, but doing custom cakes is a lot of responsibility, and we want to start off with what we know we’re good at.”

“Okay…” Cheetor trailed off. Again, he was silent for a few minutes. “...What about donuts?”

“Go to _sleep_, kid,” Rattrap hissed.

Cheetor sighed, but he didn’t speak again.

It only took a minute or two for Optimus to drift into sleep. He slept like a rock, through Cheetor getting up to go to the bathroom three times, and through Rattrap disappearing halfway through the night. Optimus slept peacefully, oblivious to the hardships that lay ahead.

* * *

The Maximal Bakery was a destination in Philadelphia. For 30 years it had provided good, fresh bread to the community, and had grown and thrived in spite of time, changing priorities, and one raging fire.

None of them knew how the managers had chosen Providence as the location for their first attempt at franchising. Market research, presumably—their job was baking, not business.

But when the question came to who would head the project, Optimus was an easy choice. The original Maximal Bakery— HQ, as they took to calling it— had trained a lot of bakers over the years, and Optimus was one of the best, as well as having proven himself to be level-headed and capable of managing people. They decided to start small, with four employees from HQ to start the new branch off with the right atmosphere, and then Optimus would be able to hire as the need arose. He made his choices with care, paying close attention to covering a wide range of skillsets.

On the other side of town, Megatron listened to these early meetings through a wire he’d had planted in the Maximal Bakery manager’s office and realized that his rival was leaving town. Not only that, but the Maximals were expanding into uncontested turf.

He took this information straight to management at The Predacon, another bakery in town. It was smaller and less lucrative, but it had opened its doors at around the same time as the Maximal Bakery had, and so the two regarded each other as competitors of sorts.

Megatron’s bosses seemed less than interested in the reveal. So, rather than asking, Megatron announced that he would be taking a team of his own to Providence. The managers gave each other weary looks, sighed, and wrote a check. Some things weren’t worth the risk of running afoul of Megatron’s father for. Privately, they were glad to have him gone.

That same week, Megatron found a place to rent in East Providence, chose his team, and got to work.

* * *

“Are you certain this was a good idea?”

Megatron turned to face his naysayer, a pointed frown and a hand on his hip already prepared. “My dear Dinobot, I _do_ wish you would stop asking me that. One might begin to think you don’t trust my judgement,” he said. “_Yes_, I’m confident our business will prosper here. Happy?”

Dinobot frowned at the building around him. “I just think we could have chosen a better location,” he said. As if to prove hs point, a spider descended between them on an invisible line of web. Dinobot swatted it away with a grimace. “Somewhere cleaner. Closer to downtown. Somewhere less… dark.”

“Nonsense. It just needs a bit of work. Some better lighting, and a fresh coat of paint on the walls. It may be dirty now, but there’s no reason we can’t clean it,” Megatron said, sounding as confident as could be. “_Yes_, it just needs a bit of elbow grease. Speaking of which— Waspinator, get back to work!”

Waspinator startled so badly from where he was sitting at the other end of the room that a good portion of the cup of coffee he’d been drinking ended up on his pants. “Wazzpinator is on break,” he said sadly, but stood up and resumed scrubbing the walls alongside Scorponok anyway.

“There, you see? It will be shining before you know it,” Megatron said. Dinobot looked unconvinced, and was more interested in inspecting the grime on the front counter than anything Megatron had to say at the moment.

He wove an arm around Dinobot’s waist and bodily turned him so that he was looking where Megatron wanted, and spread out his other arm out demonstratively at the space around them. “I know this move has been difficult for you, my dear, but just picture what it’s all been for. _Yes_, I can see it now—with my expertly crafted artisanal breads and your cakes and pastries, we’ll have the Maximals outclassed in no time,” he said, preemptively proud. “We may even eclipse our parent company. Break off on our own, the two of us. What would you say to that?” Behind them, Scorponok huffed indignantly, but neither of them paid him any mind.

Dinobot rolled his eyes. “I would say you’re awfully optimistic, considering we haven’t even opened our doors to the public yet.”

“All in good time, my dear Dinobot,” Megatron said, and gave him a squeeze and a quick kiss to the forehead before releasing him. “Now, I have a consultation with an interior decorator that I can’t miss. I’ll see you tonight.”

He was out the door moments later, and as soon as he was gone, the inhabitants of the bakery relaxed some. Megatron was perfectly confident he’d made the right decision here, and in moods like this, he could not be argued with. It made him difficult to live with.

“Ungrateful,” Dinobot heard Scorponok mutter from his place scrubbing the dirt off the wall.

“Excuse me?” Dinobot snapped. Scorponok hunched in on himself and kept scrubbing. Dinobot wasn’t particularly happy with Scorponok’s inclusion in their group, but there hadn’t been many willing to leave with them in the first place, so his insolence was tolerated. For now.

It wasn’t that Dinobot wanted to be contrary. He looked around him, and he _tried_ to see what Megatron saw, rather than everything he’d had to give up to come here. Assuming it all worked out, it was likely to be a good career move, but… Well, and he would miss his theater group. The whole thing had happened so suddenly, they’d had to find a new Iago two weeks before the first performance.

Putting that out of his mind, Dinobot picked up a scrubber and started on a section of wall opposite Scorponok and Waspinator, and all was peaceful.

For about five minutes. After that, there was a loud slam and crash from the kitchen.

Dinobot was through the door leading to the back in seconds, but once he was there, he found nothing of note. Just Terrorsaur, frozen in the act of mopping the floor, and Tarantulas leaning against some cabinets, looking innocent.

“What was that?” Dinobot demanded. Terrorsaur shrugged.

“What was what?” Tarantulas asked.

Before Dinobot could probe him, Terrorsaur shrieked, his voice piercing.

_“What?”_ Dinobot growled.

“Mold!” Terrorsaur cried, pointing to a corner just above one of the countertops. Sure enough, there was a patch of mold growing up the wall. They would have to tear out the counter and cabinets, check for a leak, and make sure everything was immaculately cleaned.

Dinobot felt his lip curl involuntarily in disgust. He _really_ wished Megatron had brought him along to examine the building. Now there was nothing to be done but make the most of it.

Well, losing this counter wouldn’t be much of a loss. “Forget the mopping. We’re going to have to remove the cabinets to make sure there isn’t any there as well. You and Tarantulas get started on that,” Dinobot ordered.

“Oh, no, I’m much too busy replacing these lightbulbs,” Tarantulas said. He motioned to the pile of new lightbulbs, still in their packaging, sitting on the counter. There was no ladder in sight.

“Fine. _Scorponok_ will help you,” Dinobot snarled.

Despite how busy he supposedly was, once the process was underway, Tarantulas sidled up to Dinobot’s side to observe. “So. This place is a real piece of work.”

“It will look better once it’s all cleaned up and furnished,” Dinobot said, and wished he believed it.

“Of course. I’m just wondering what will happen if it isn’t. If, say, we don’t meet Megatron’s frankly demanding timeline,” Tarantulas said. “If we’ll still be getting paychecks, for instance.”

“As long as you’re working, you’ll be paid,” Dinobot said tensely.

“Oh, good. Because I’m _always_ working,” Tarantulas chuckled, and then slipped away.

Dinobot didn’t doubt that—he just doubted that most of that _work_ had anything to do with the bakery.

They threw out the pieces of the cabinets they’d been able to dislodge from the wall and Dinobot released the rest of them, calling it a day. Hopefully Megatron had discussed kitchen countertops and cabinet space during his consultation.

The bus ride back to the hotel was quiet. Dinobot spent it looking up local theater companies.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opening a new restaurant is never easy.

Of course, things couldn’t go exactly as planned.

For the most part, Cheetor had few complaints. Moving to a new city was a lot of work, but it was also exciting. He found a room to rent with a nice empty nester couple, and unpacked his sparse belongings. He went to work every day with his friends, and while he wasn’t baking just yet, he was getting to watch the whole bakery come together. It was a rewarding process.

Things were going pretty well. Aside from the occasional missing package and falsely cancelled deliveries which pushed their opening date back more than once. Aside from all that, everything was going as well as could be expected, and nothing like this ever went perfectly.

The problem was that they couldn’t open their doors officially until they passed inspection. Which they had now failed to do three times.

As soon as the inspector walked in the first time, Cheetor knew he was going to be trouble. He just had that look about him. Those in the food business never _liked_ inspectors, but most accepted them as a necessary annoyance, just trying to do their job. This one looked like he had a vendetta.

He introduced himself as Mr. Vok, no first name, and refused any attempts at smalltalk as he examined each minute part of the bakery, front and back, writing up notes the entire way. They weren’t particularly surprised to fail that first one. The public bathroom wasn’t finished, and their commercial food waste interceptor hadn’t arrived yet.

He made a long list of other things, some understandable and some that felt downright petty, which they fixed all of. At the second visit, he gave them another list, this one even more granular.

“Seriously?” Cheetor demanded as he looked over the second list. “No decorations within eight inches of the ceiling? Are these real rules? There’s no way any of this is real.”

“That’s the thing about the restaurant biz. If the health inspector don’t like ya, they’ll find a way to make you miserable,” Rattrap said, struggling to get a glimpse of it over Cheetor’s shoulder. “No green text on the windows? What does that have to do with health?”

“It may not seem fair, but complying with this list isn’t the hardest thing we’ve done since we got here,” Optimus said, trying to keep their spirits up, no doubt. He was actually working, unlike the two of them—pulling fresh loaves of bread out of the oven and setting them aside to cool, soon to be packed up. “Rattrap, are you watching your bagels?”

“Of course I’m watching my bagels,” Rattrap scoffed, as if the very idea of him leaving them to boil for too long was preposterous. But he did walk back over to them to flip them over. Then it was back to the giant mixer for more dough.

Cheetor watched him closely, tracking his every move as he poured in flour, yeast and salt. “How do you know how much of everything to put in?” he asked. It was something he wondered every time he watched one of them pour with no regard for measuring devices.

“Eh, I just know. It’s in my blood,” Rattrap said. “My people invented the bagel.”

“Bagels are from Poland,” Rhinox pointed out as he walked through the door, pulling a wagon full of empty carrying containers behind him.

“And we got more Poles in New York than they got in Poland,” Rattrap answered.

Cheetor helped Rhinox get everything loaded up and into the car while they waited on Rattrap to finish his bagels. He was excited to set up—while they hadn’t been cleared to open their doors to the public officially yet, there was nothing stopping them from participating in the monthly community market. And after three weeks of waiting, Cheetor couldn’t wait to actually sell some bread.

As the last of the bagels finished, Cheetor packed them away in the insulated bags and loaded them into the car, and then they were off.

* * *

Megatron had taken care to distance himself from his father’s influence. And there had been abundant offers he could have taken him up on—even when the two both lived in the same city, Megatron was firm in stating that he was going to succeed in this field on his own merit, and moving away had even further proven the point.

When the health inspector was here, Megatron felt very tempted to go back on that. Oh, how he would have enjoyed putting Mr. Vok on a hit list.

The plan had been for The Predacon to open its doors before the Maximal Bakery was able to, before they even knew what had hit them. This, the stolen packages and general minor mischief was intended to delay them. Now it was looking like he shouldn’t have even bothered—if health inspectors in Providence were _this_ anal, they wouldn’t need his help in finding a way to keep the Maximals from opening their doors.

“You still have the wrong sort of grate on this drain here,” Mr. Vok pointed out as he stepped over it. “I pointed that out to you last time, did I not?”

Megatron shot a murderous glare at Scorponok, standing in a corner with Terrorsaur and Waspinator, and all three of them flinched. It had been _his_ job to have that replaced. They would be having words later. “_Yes_, I believe you did. My sincerest apologies,” Megatron said.

“Hmph,” Mr. Vok hummed. Megatron had been following him around this visit, looming behind him everywhere he went in hopes it would intimidate him, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. “I see the light in your exit sign is out…”

Forget the hit. Megatron was going to strangle him here and now.

Fortunately, a distraction presented itself—Tarantulas appeared in the doorway to the front and cleared his throat. “Megatron, if you aren’t too busy, I believe I have something you’ll want to see.”

Well, he didn’t seem to be doing much good _here_. He paused on his way to the door to fix Scorponok, Terrorsaur and Waspinator with a hard look. “Keep an eye on him,” he said, his voice low, and they all nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“What’s going on?” Megatron demanded as soon as he was through the door. He found Tarantulas and Dinobot behind the front counter, looking at one of their computer screens. Notably, the ones they’d discreetly hooked up outside the Maximal Bakery to keep an eye on them.

“We have movement,” Tarantulas said, sounding pleased with himself.

“It looks like they’re packing up and leaving,” Dinobot observed.

Sure enough, once Megatron was able to get a better look, he saw them stacking boxes into the back of Optimus’s car. “Where are they going…? Tarantulas, check their website,” Megatron ordered. If it was personal belongings, fine, but if there was something else going on, Megatron wanted to know about it.

“I don’t understand why all this subterfuge is necessary,” Dinobot grumbled, his arms folded. “It’s not a very honorable way to do business.”

Megatron restrained himself from rolling his eyes, but it was a close thing. “Dinobot, my dear, all we’re seeing through these cameras is what anyone would be able to see from the street. There’s nothing illegal about that,” he said.

“As if that has stopped you before,” Dinobot muttered.

_“Tarantulas?”_

“I’m working on it! The wifi you got is atrocious,” Tarantulas complained. _“Ah,_ here we are. According to their Instagram, they have a table at the community market today.”

“Which is?” Megatron prodded, arms folded over his chest.

“Hmm… It looks like people set up tables monthly and sell their goods. I assume they’re using it to sell something before they’re able to officially open,” Tarantulas explains.

Oh, Megatron did not like the sound of that at all. “And why are we just now finding out about this?” he demanded.

“Some of us have been _busy._ You have just as much access to their social media feeds as I do,” Tarantulas huffed. Insolent. Megatron was about to put him in his place when he overheard a snatch of an exchange in the kitchen.

“And what type of fire extinguisher do you have?” Mr. Vok asked.

“There… are different kinds?” was Scorponok’s response.

Megatron sighed. One thing at a time. “We can’t allow them to waltz around gaining business before us. _No_, someone has to go and keep an eye on them,” he said, and poked his head back into the kitchen. “Terrorsaur! Your services are needed.”

Terrorsaur looked more than happy to leave the kitchen and its remaining occupants behind. “What’s up, boss? Are we gonna kill him?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the kitchen.

“Not yet. I need you to go to the Providence community market and keep an eye on the Maximals. They’re putting up a booth there, and I need to know what they’re up to.”

“You’d do well to keep yourself out of sight,” Dinobot commented. “To our knowledge, they aren’t aware of our presence here.”

“_Yes,_ good thinking, Dinobot. Stay hidden and text me whatever you see. We need to know what they’re up to,” Megatron ordered.

“I’m still on the clock for this, right?” Terrorsaur asked cautiously.

Megatron growled. There were more important things at stake than money at the moment. “_Yes!_ Now stop wasting time and get out there!”

He was out the door in seconds. That just left Mr. Vok to deal with.

“He must be almost done,” Megatron said, frowning at the door to the kitchen. “Dinobot, my dear, would you go back in there and glare at him for me? You have such a piercing gaze”

He did, and demonstrated it on Megatron, but they had been together long enough that he had become immune to such things. And Dinobot did in fact go back into the kitchen. Smirking to himself, Megatron leaned in closer to Tarantulas and lowered his voice. “This means the Maximals have left their bakery unguarded, does it not?”

“I believe it does,” Tarantulas chuckled. Megatron could always count on him to catch on to such opportunities quickly. “Did you have anything in mind?”

“Nothing too elaborate, _no_. I just think we owe them a little welcome present,” Megatron said.

Tarantulas laced his fingers together in glee. “I can work with that.”

* * *

The community market was full of interesting sights and smells and sounds and Cheetor wanted to explore every inch of it. It was like a farmer’s market, flea market and thrift store all rolled into one, and it made a deep and primal part of Cheetor’s brain very excited.

“Hey, big boss? Can I go look around?” he asked, a little breathlessly.

“Let’s finish setting up first,” Optimus said and handed him a tablecloth. “Then we’ll see about exploring.”

In Cheetor’s opinion, they had a pretty cool setup. On one end of the table was the bagel station with a sign and all the fixings lined up. In the middle Optimus and Rhinox set up a little display with information about the bakery, including business cards, a brochure with a menu, and jars full of different types of flour they used with little placards in front detailing where it all came from. Then at the end was the bread section, where they had full loaves on display and a generous collection of samples for passersby.

Cheetor couldn’t help but feel proud of it once it was all finished. Maybe soon they’d be able to add a section for cupcakes and pastries.

“Looks like we finished just in time,” Rhinox observed as people started wandering into the park. There were only a few tables around theirs that hadn’t been set up yet.

“Can I go look around now before it gets too busy?” Cheetor asked, looking to Optimus pleadingly.

Optimus seemed to take a moment to mull it over. “Just be back in ten minutes,” he relented.

“Yes sir!” Cheetor beamed, and jogged off to see everything there was to see.

“I wanted to go look at the craft beers,” he heard Rattrap grumble behind him. “You guys always baby him. You know he’s not actually a kid, right?”

There was so much to see at the marketplace. Handmade soaps, knitted sweaters and scarves, antiques, jars of local honey and tomatoes and squash. It was almost overwhelming— there was no way he could see everything in ten minutes. He hoped he’d be able to come back around later and take his time.

He wasn’t actually planning on buying anything. Moving had left him a little low on funds (not that he’d ever been high on funds), but as soon as he saw a bucket full of PVC marshmallow guns, he couldn’t help himself. They were spraypainted cool designs, too. He grabbed the one with a cheetah print. The lady at the stall even gave him a ziplock bag full of marshmallows to go with it.

He loaded a couple into the gun, planning to hit Rattrap with one, and stuffed the rest in his pocket. Gun tucked under his arm, he started to make his way back to his friends when something made him stop in his tracks.

At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. It took a moment to identify and isolate the screechy voice arguing with a novelty socks vendor a couple tables away, but Cheetor would recognize that voice anywhere.

“Terrorsaur?” he gaped.

Terrorsaur whirled around, novelty socks and their prices long forgotten. As soon as he saw Cheetor he froze, as if his brain was rebooting.

“What are you doing here?” Cheetor demanded, walking towards him. After the initial shock had passed, Cheetor found that he was angry. He’d seen more of Terrorsaur than he cared to already, with all the spying and sabotage Megatron and his employees had enacted on the Maximal Bakery back in Philadelphia. When they’d left, Cheetor had been relieved that they wouldn’t have to deal with that anymore. Now it seemed like that wasn’t the case.

Terrorsaur finally got a grip on himself. “This is just a coincidence!” he screeched. “Forget you saw me!”

“Yeah, right! What, were you guys desperate enough to make a five hour drive just to keep spying on us?”

“I don’t have to answer to you!” Terrorsaur yelled back, and then broke into a sprint. Cheetor started to follow him, and he knew he was faster. He’d had college track recruiters contacting him before he’d decided on baking as a career. But he only had a minute left before he was supposed to be back, and what would he do when he caught Terrorsaur? Fight him in the middle of the park? Call the cops on him for daring to exist in a public space?

He grit his teeth and turned to walk back to their table, marshmallow gun clutched in his hands. If he was lucky, maybe he’d scared Terrorsaur off and wouldn’t have to deal with him for the rest of the day.

Even as he explained what had happened to his coworkers, Rattrap was looking them up on his phone.

“Well, there’s nothin’ on their website,” he said. “But Terrorsaur’s Facebook says he moved to Providence a couple weeks ago.”

“It could be a coincidence,” Rhinox said, but he didn’t sound too convinced.

“If I worked for Megatron I’d run away to another state, too,” Optimus said, and sighed. “I’d hoped coming here would be an opportunity to end this feud, but it looks like I might have been wrong. Let’s just get through today, we can figure the rest out later. But keep your eyes open, everyone.”

Cheetor had been at this long enough to not have to be told_ that_.

He hadn’t been around at the start of the “feud,” as Optimus was putting it, and still wasn’t completely certain why it had started up in the first place. The Maximal Bakery and The Predacon had been competitors for some time, but as far as he knew, things hadn’t been like _this_ before Optimus and Megatron’s time working at them. And there were a lot of people who worked at the Maximal Bakery, but most of their problems seemed to have something to do with Optimus. It had been like that when Cheetor had started working there. It hadn’t kept him from becoming friends with Optimus, but it meant he’d been up close and personal for a lot of Megatron’s attacks.

Optimus wouldn’t comment on it, but Rattrap told Cheetor it probably started with their parents. Cheetor had met Optimus’s parents, a retired cop and a very much not-retired aikido instructor. And you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in Philadelphia who hadn’t at least heard of Megatron’s father. But Cheetor didn’t know why that had to cause problems between their sons.

The community market was a success. Lots of people stopped by to buy bagels and bread, and many stuck around to discuss baking with Optimus or Rhinox, asking for advice or recommendations for supplies. Lots of people said they looked forward to stopping by once they opened their doors officially, and the number of people following their Facebook and Instagram pages shot up. So all in all, positive.

But then, Terrorsaur. He didn’t do them the courtesy of getting lost. Cheetor found himself looking over his shoulder the whole day, and more than once he was rewarded with the sight of Terrorsaur watching them as inconspicuously as he was able (which was to say, not much). It wasn’t like they could stop what they were doing to chase him off each time, either, but if Cheetor found himself with no immediate concerns and a good shot, he tested out his new marshmallow gun on him. He was especially proud of the time he managed to hit the Pred square in the eye, resulting in a scandalized shriek.

As if a whole day of feeling watched wasn’t enough, they returned to the bakery late that afternoon to find the front windows covered in paint splatters so thick the other side of the glass was completely obscured. It reminded Cheetor of the aftermath of a particularly gruesome paintball match. Even the sign was completely covered in paint.

Rattrap poked his head between the two front seats of Optimus’s car and looked at Rhinox. “Still think it was a coincidence?”

“Not really,” Rhinox said. “I think we’re going to need a better security system.”

Optimus sighed and moved to park the car. “I’ll talk to some of the other storeowners in the area and see if they managed to catch any footage,” he said. “At least they didn’t break the windows this time.”

Cheetor gasped, which caused Optimus to instinctively hit the breaks, jerking the car a little bit. Everyone turned to look at him. “What? Did you see something?” Optimus asked.

“No, but guys—could Megatron actually get arrested here? Like—go to jail and everything?” Cheetor asked. There had been so many times where he should have been arrested but cops looked the other way, or times when he had been arrested but bailed out the next morning. For a baker, he was really well connected.

“Well… We’re not in Philadelphia anymore,” Rhinox said.

“We ain’t even in Pennsylvania,” Rattrap pointed out. “What’re the chances they got mafia connections in _Rhode Island?_ I can’t even believe _we’re_ here.”

Optimus finished parking the car in silence and turned it off. “It’s definitely a possibility,” he said. “There’s also the possibility that getting him arrested just gets us more unwanted attention. If this is able to be traced back to him in the first place.”

“It’s worth a try, though, right?” Cheetor asked. He’d only been at this a couple years, and he was already over it. He didn’t know how Optimus coped.

“We can report it to the police,” Optimus relented. “But we also need to figure out how hard it’s going to be to clean this up. I’m sure Mr. Vok will be able to find something wrong with it.”

Mr. Vok was able to find something wrong with _everything_, they were now finding out.

Having the police there wasn’t as exciting as Cheetor was expecting. It was just one guy who came by, took some pictures, asked Optimus and Rhinox some questions, and left. No promises of justice. He didn’t even seem to think any of this was a big deal. But it was officially documented and would be looked into, at least. And for once, Cheetor actually believed that.

He’d planned to do some more unpacking once he got back to his newly-rented room, but instead he ended up collapsing on his bed and playing Animal Crossing on his phone. He was interrupted about an hour in by Rattrap in the bakery Whatsapp group.

💣_rattrap:_ so i did some research

_💣rattrap:_ nothing on the predacon’s actual website, hilariously, but they’re definitely here

He sent some screenshots showing a new Facebook page for The Predacon in Providence, along with the social media of various employees that showed their recent move. At least they could get an idea of who it was they were up against.

_Optimus:_ Thanks. We can discuss this more tomorrow.

That was more than fine with Cheetor. He passed out soon after.

* * *

Megatron, Tarantulas and Waspinator arrived back at The Predacon just before Terrorsaur did. Dinobot was there waiting for them, leaning against the front counter with his arms crossed over his chest. It looked like Megatron had done something wrong, although he wasn’t entirely certain what—he put on his most charming smile and prepared to do some damage control.

“How did the rest of the inspection go?” he asked, and sidled up to wrap an arm around Dinobot’s back.

“Worse than the last one, somehow,” Dinobot said testily.

Megatron’s expression darkened. “I have had quite enough of this,” he muttered. “_Yes_, Mr. Vok is going to regret crossing me.”

“You said things were going to be different here,” Dinobot said.

That gave Megatron pause. He took a moment to collect himself, then glared Tarantulas and Waspinator into scurrying back into the kitchen. Hopefully they would help Scorponok go through the list Mr. Vok had left them and start making the necessary changes. Again.

“‘A new start,’ you said,” Dinobot continued. “No more games, no more _connections._ Proof you can do it without your father’s interference.”

“I _can_,” Megatron snapped.

“Then _why_ are we still here? We should be open by now,” Dinobot said. “And the cameras and the spying are one thing, but sneaking off to pelt their windows with paintball guns? Leaving me to deal with the heath inspector? I am not the _manager_ here, Megatron.”

“That was just a little welcoming present, there was no permanent damage. _Yes,_ I didn’t even break their windows this time,” Megatron said. “And you know as well as I do that this health inspector is being unreasonably malicious. The Maximals have been having trouble with him, too.”

“We’re supposed to be _better_ than them. We had the element of surprise—”

“We _are_ better than them. It’s just taking a little bit longer than expected to get off the ground,” Megatron said. He didn’t like where this was going. “Why is that such a problem? Do you think you could be doing better?”

“In fact, I—”

At that moment, Terrorsaur slammed the front door open and stepped inside. “I got shot _in the eye!”_ he screeched.

Almost in sync, Megatron and Dinobot rolled their eyes. “We can finish this later,” Megatron murmured into Dinobot’s ear, then released him. “Terrorsaur, it’s about time you returned. Come, you can debrief us in the back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [hmu on tumblr!](http://www.miniconsuffrage.tumblr.com) ✌️


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinobot and Megatron part ways, but Dinobot has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry guys!!!! nanowrimo is kicking my ass. doesn't mix well with editing!)

The Maximal Bakery passed their inspection and opened their doors. Soon after, The Predacon did the same. For the Maximals, business grew steadily. They started in a good location with lots of foot traffic, and their whole band was friendly. Most of them were even competent.

The same could not be said for The Predacon.

They were just getting off to a slow start, Megatron said. Things would pick up as the word got out. And all the while he was watching the Maximals through the cameras and sending Predacon employees to create petty annoyances for them—sending fake packages, gluing their front door shut, stealing their dumpster. It wasn’t anything they’d never done before, and yet.

Dinobot was getting to the end of his rope, watching all of this. Some things had been out of Megatron’s hands, yes. But he was the one who chose the location. He was the one who continued to divert their attention and manpower to causing inconveniences for their competitors, and he was the one that refused to listen to reason anytime Dinobot tried to make a suggestion. In the beginning Megatron had made a fine case for himself that he would be a good manager, and would right the wrongs Dinobot had always seen with the original Predacon’s leadership, but every day that went by, Dinobot became more convinced that Megatron was running this ship into the ground.

Three weeks in, he had had enough.

This confrontation really should have happened at home, privately, but Dinobot was on an earlier shift than Megatron was, and he spent the first few hours at work stewing. Normally, piping was a meditative, relaxing activity—to do his best work, he found he needed to clear his mind and focus only on what was in front of him. He did not do his best work that day.

By the time Megatron walked through the doors, Dinobot was ready to burst. He refrained— instead cornering him as he put his bag away and grabbed an apron.

“We need to talk.”

Megatron barely looked at him, which was infuriating. “I’m a little busy right now, Dinobot, you know there are loaves that need to go in the oven,” he said, and tried to move past him. “_Yes_, whatever _suggestion_ you have now can wait a little bit.”

Dinobot bodily put himself in Megatron’s way, forcing him to meet his eye. “We need. To _talk_,” he said again, more forcefully. He was not going to be put off this time, no matter what it took. They stared each other down for a long, drawn out moment.

Megatron was the first to break, shifting his gaze to the room around him and taking note of where the rest of his employees were. Finally, he cleared his throat, getting the attention of the others in the room. “Everyone wait in the front,” he commanded. “Dinobot and I need to have a quick discussion.”

“I’m in the middle of scoring,” Terrorsaur complained, gesturing to a rack of fully risen loaves, half of which were ready to go into the oven.

“This won’t take long. _No,_” Megatron assured darkly. “We’ll only be a moment.”

Dinobot bit down on the urge to retort. Let them leave, then he could say his piece. The two of them watched the other employees shuffle out, casting odd looks behind them, and finally, the door shut.

“Now. What is it that couldn’t possibly wait until we got home?” Megatron asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Don’t act like you haven’t been avoiding me for days,” Dinobot snapped. “I think you know _exactly_ what I want to discuss.”

Megatron had the gall to roll his eyes. “Yes, you’ve made your unhappiness with our current revenue level clear. And I have _told_ you, these issues will all clear up in time.”

“No. We’re well beyond that,” Dinobot said. “You’ve never acknowledged or cared how much I had to give up to come here with you, just to be in a _worse_ professional position due to your mismanagement.”

_“Mismanagement—”_

“I’ve had enough,” Dinobot stated firmly. “There’s no delicate way to put this. I’m asking you to hand management of the bakery over to me.”

For a moment, Megatron looked dumbfounded. And then, angry. “You must be joking.”

“I assure you, I am not.”

“You think you’re better than me, is that it? _Yes_, you think everything would be different under your leadership,” Megatron said. “I am the only reason we’re here! _I_ acquired the funds and the support of The Predacon. _I_ did all the preparation.”

“Which you did badly!” Dinobot retorted. “And the only reason you did all that work is because you’re controlling and can’t imagine anyone having a better idea than you! We’ve tried it your way, Megatron, and it has proven to be lacking.”

He slammed a fist down on the table. Dinobot didn’t flinch. He hadn’t expected this to go _well_, and he knew what fighting with Megatron was like. “If I didn’t know any better,” Megatron said testily, “it would sound like you aren’t interested in continuing this relationship. Professionally or personally.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that if things continue the way they have, you’re going to run this place into the ground,” Dinobot said. “For the sake of everyone who depends on this place for a paycheck, _including_ the both of us, I’m making sure that doesn’t happen. If you would think about something other than your pride, you would agree with me.”

“This is all very convenient, isn’t it?” Megatron asked, folding his arms back over his chest. “_Yes_, you’ve never been content with my leadership, and now you think you can usurp me. You know I can find another pastry chef at any time.”

“Not one as good as me,” Dinobot said. He was not going to be modest—he knew he was good. “Not on short notice, and _especially_ not on what you’re paying.”

“You aren’t special,” Megatron said.

Dinobot snarled. That was the last straw. It was one thing if Megatron wasn’t going to see sense, but denying his worth? “Then you’ll have no trouble replacing me,” Dinobot said. “At work or in your bed.”

Megatron actually _laughed_. “_No_, I won’t,” he said. “I never have.”

Dinobot nearly decked him. Instead, he grabbed his bag from underneath the counter and walked out the back door, slamming it behind him. The finality of it felt somewhat satisfying, but he kicked over a trashcan on his way out for good measure.

* * *

It was clear something was going on when Waspinator walked in for his shift that day. Terrorsaur, Scorponok, and Tarantulas were all in the front, sitting around a table, and Megatron and Dinobot’s muffled voices wafted through from the back.

“What did Waspinator miss?” he groaned, already knowing it was going to be a bad day.

“Oh, Mom and Dad are fighting,” Tarantulas exclaimed, gesturing to the fourth seat at the table for Waspinator to sit in. That much was clear enough from the raised voices. If they could just keep it together for another couple of weeks…

“Which one is Mom?” Terrorsaur asked after a moment.

Tarantulas grinned. “Megatron, of course.”

Scorponok sputtered indignantly. “That’s our boss!” he said, but before he could say anything more the yelling stopped. If they strained they could still hear the sound of voices, but there was no chance they could make out words.

Waspinator let his head thunk onto the table and twisted his fingers into his hair. “Waspinator hates this,” he groaned. Someone reached over and patted him lightly on the shoulder.

The back door slammed. A moment later, a great crashing sound came from the kitchen, causing all four of them to flinch. Finally, Megatron opened the door.

“Terrorsaur. You’ve just been promoted,” he said darkly.

_“What?”_ Scorponok gasped.

“To what?” Terrorsaur asked, clearly not thrilled either.

“Pastry chef,” Megatron said. Waspinator’s gut sank. Terrorsaur filled in for Dinobot sometimes. If he was being officially promoted…

“Aw, I hate that stuff,” he complained. “What happened to Dino—”

_“Don’t,”_ Megatron snapped, silencing him. “We aren’t honoring the names of _traitors_ with a mention. And if you find your new duties objectionable, you’re welcome to find another job_, yes.”_

“Nah,” Terrorsaur said weakly.

“Good,” Megatron said. It was almost impressive, how he could make one word sound like a threat. “Now get back to work, all of you. And clean up this mess.”

The mess was the tray of loaves Terrorsaur had all ready to go into the oven, which was now on its side. Terrorsaur grumbled about it more than Waspinator would have considered safe. As the janitor, it was Waspinator’s job to unstick the ruined dough from the floor and discard it.

He was relieved to finish that and leave the tense atmosphere of the kitchen behind to start his cleaning up front. Occasionally he would have to stop what he was doing to help a customer, but it was worlds better than being back there with Megatron’s stewing so palpable.

Eventually, he couldn’t put off cleaning the kitchen any longer. But, in a stroke of luck Waspinator wasn’t often afforded, Megatron was preparing to leave just as he entered. He hadn’t worked anywhere near a full shift, but evidently he felt he’d done enough.

Megatron gave Scorponok some last minute orders and left without another word. Everyone collectively relaxed a little as soon as the door closed behind him.

Waspinator tried to avoid it, but Terrorsaur managed to make eye contact with him. “Alright, pay up,” he said.

“Dinobot might come back,” Waspinator protested, as futile as he knew it was. “Dinobot has come back before. Megatron did not _say_ they were breaking up.

“Come on, that was _clearly_ a breakup,” Terrorsaur said. “Fine, I’ll give you a week. If he’s not back by then, I get my $20.”

“You bet on our boss’s relationship?” Scorponok demanded, giving them a scathing look from the other side of the kitchen. Waspinator wilted a little, but Terrorsaur just shrugged.

For all of their sakes, Waspinator hoped Dinobot did come back. Waspinator was no baker, but he knew Terrorsaur wasn’t that good. And without him around to keep Megatron from being too unreasonable…

Waspinator didn’t really want to think about it.

* * *

Dinobot went straight home and packed up everything he wanted. A lot of it was still in boxes from the move, which sped things up. He called an Uber and promised the driver a good tip in exchange for helping him load everything up and taking him to a motel.

The first thing he did once he had secured a room and gotten all of his earthly possessions inside it was take out some of his anger on a pillow. All that time and effort_, wasted_. Five years of investment into a relationship down the drain, stuck in a new city, with his entire career disrupted to boot. Great. _Wonderful!_

He should have known better, was the worst part. He knew Megatron, probably better than anyone else on the planet, and he still followed him here.

The second thing Dinobot did was open up his computer and start scrolling through job listings.

He didn’t find much. He could go back to Philadelphia, but he didn’t want to return to The Predacon and risk having to interact with Megatron in the workplace again. Aside from that, it looked like most places just weren’t hiring, and those that were probably wouldn’t pay him what he was worth. And here, in a new town, he didn’t have any contacts for freelance work.

Dinobot refused to fall into desperation. He was a good baker, and he would find a way out of this. And a lower paying job was better than none at all. He fired off a few applications with links to his portfolio proving his skill and repertoire.

A job listing popped up for the _Maximal Bakery_, of all places. Doing so well they needed to hire more hands, apparently. Alone in a cluttered motel room, Dinobot growled at the few lines of text. The universe was cruel indeed, to allow this. The Predacon had its management issues, but so did the Maximals. Word got around the baking community in Philadelphia, so Dinobot had heard the whispers. People being cheated out of overtime pay, vacation days and disability coverage. Then there was the all-too-convenient fire a couple years ago. It wasn’t a place Dinobot would ever willingly subject himself to.

All these businesses needed was someone with a shred of honor and good sense at the helm. One wouldn’t think that would be so difficult to find.

Immediately after the Maximal Bakery’s listing, something different appeared in his search—a culinary contest, being held in Hartford. There were multiple divisions, one of which was baking. There was prize money. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Slowly, a plan started to form in Dinobot’s head.

* * *

After the community market, Megatron and his employees wasted no time in making themselves known, in various and increasingly irritating ways, and far more often than they ever had in Philadelphia. There, they’d had a moderating force in the form of their superiors. Here, there seemed to be nothing stopping Megatron from enacting every petty thought that crossed his mind.

Optimus was getting tired of it. The police investigation into the defacing of their windows hadn’t led to anyone conclusively, and with every subsequent poke or prod, Megatron was careful. Even with the new security cameras Rhinox had installed, they hadn’t been able to catch any Predacon employee doing anything that could be definitively linked to the incidents. Optimus was fairly certain Officer Prowl was tired of hearing from them.

They tried to continue on with business as usual, and Optimus was proud of his team for taking everything in stride and only complaining a moderate amount. But something had to change.

Optimus wasn’t expecting that _something_ to be Dinobot walking through their front door.

He heard the hubbub before he knew what had caused it.

_“Hey, hey, hey! What do you think you’re doin’ in here? Get out before we call the cops!”_ came Rattrap’s voice from the front counter. Optimus and Rhinox’s eyes met before Optimus hastily wiped most of the flour off his hands and sprinted to the door.

“I’m not here for _you_, vermin, I’m here for—Optimus,” Dinobot said, eyes narrowing in on him as soon as he appeared in the doorway. “We need to talk.”

Optimus didn’t know what he could possibly want to talk about, but there were customers watching with alarm. “Why don’t you come on back?” he said, shifting so Dinobot could walk through the doorway.

“Are you kidding me? You’re gonna let him back there? Who knows what he might do!” Rattrap protested even as Dinobot stepped around the counter.

“Shut up, Rattrap,” Optimus said through gritted teeth. The last thing they needed was to make more of a scene.

Dinobot walked into the middle of the kitchen like he owned the place. He looked it over with a sharp eye, paying no mind to Cheetor and Rhinox watching him with bewildered expressions. After doing a full 360, he nodded to himself. “Yes, this will do just fine.”

“Excuse me?” Optimus asked, closing the door to the kitchen just after Rattrap slipped through, leaving the front counter unattended.

Dinobot pointed a finger at Optimus. “I’m challenging you to a duel,” he said.

“Like with guns?” Rattrap asked, squinting at him.

“Yugioh?” Cheetor guessed.

_“Baking,”_ Dinobot said, producing a brochure out of his back pocket with a flourish and offering it to Optimus. “The registration deadline is today.”

Optimus took the brochure and looked it over—a baking and pastry arts competition being held nearby in Connecticut. At first glance it looked interesting, Optimus just wasn’t sure why it was being given to him. “You… want me to enter this?” he guessed.

“It’s the only way we can face each other fairly. The judges will be unfamiliar with either of us, and so will be impartial,” Dinobot said. “Whoever wins will take over leadership of the Maximal Bakery.”

Okay… Okay. It took Optimus a moment to absorb that.

Rattrap didn’t have the same issue. “Are you _nuts?”_ he demanded. “You don’t even work here! Ain’t no way you’re getting anywhere near a management position!”

“That’s not how business works, right?” Cheetor whispered to Rhinox, looking up at him for help like he really wasn’t sure.

“No,” Rhinox answered.

“Dinobot, if this is Megatron’s next big plan—” Optimus started, but paused when Dinobot stiffened.

“I am no longer affiliated with The Predacon or any of its employees,” Dinobot said firmly, eyes narrowed at him. “This is purely between you and I. This bakery deserves a skilled and honorable leader, and there’s only one way to truly rank those qualities.”

Optimus felt like he was finally starting to grasp the edges of what was going on here. And while the whole thing was ridiculous, he couldn’t help but find himself fascinated by the proposition. He didn’t know Dinobot well, but they had crossed paths before, and he knew he was a good baker.

He made a decision.

“Okay. I’ll enter,” Optimus said. Suddenly he had three pairs of eyes on him filled with varying levels of confusion and disbelief, and one that looked triumphant. “I’m sure you know I can’t actually promote you above myself without input from my boss, but I can put in a good word for you if you win.”

“Good enough,” Dinobot said, and walked to the door to let himself out, having said what he’d had to say. He paused in the doorway and fixed Optimus with a hard look. “Until we meet again, on the field of battle.”

“See you later,” Optimus agreed.

It was deathly quiet when the door shut behind him. For a moment, anyway.

“Uh… Optimus? Are you feeling okay?” Cheetor asked.

“Of course he ain’t!” Rattrap shouted. “He’s _out of his mind!_ What were you _thinking? _You’re just gonna let a Pred come in here like he owns the place and take your job?”

“Get back to the front desk, Rattrap. You’ll have plenty of time to yell at me later,” Optimus said. He did as he was told, but glared at him the whole way out. “Cheetor, you’re late taking your break.”

Reluctantly, Cheetor rinsed the flour off his hands and went out to the front to grab something for lunch. That just left Rhinox.

Optimus met Rhinox’s eye. “If you have something to say, now’s the time,” Optimus said.

Rhinox sighed and started to knead the dough he’d been working on before Dinobot’s interruption. “I wouldn’t have come out here with you if I didn’t trust you,” he said. “I’m just not sure what you think we’re going to get out of this.”

“I’m hoping we’ll get a good pastry chef,” Optimus admitted.

“You know you aren’t better than him at everything,” Rhinox said. “He could win.”

“He could. We’ll figure it out,” Optimus said, a smile making its way to his face. “What’s starting a new business without a little bit of risk?”

“I’m sorry, I thought the risk was moving to an entirely different state, hours away and untested. My mistake,” Rhinox said, but Optimus could hear the slightest of smiles in his voice. “When is this contest?”

Optimus looked over the brochure again. “In three weeks,” he said. “I’d say that’s enough time to brush up on my pastry skills, right?”

“For all of our sakes, I hope so,” Rhinox said.

It was times like this Optimus remembered what a good team he had. They didn’t always get along perfectly, but he had never once regretted his decision to bring them along for this ride.

He had no plans to let them down.

* * *

Waspinator was out $20. He hoped he’d make up for it in overtime pay.

Terrorsaur took over Dinobot’s position as pastry chef, which meant he could no longer do his own shifts. Waspinator was not a baker. His loaves never came out quite right, no matter what he did—they didn’t rise enough, or the crust was too hard or too soft, or some of it got burned, or his scoring turned out badly. There was a reason he was a janitor. But with Terrorsaur preoccupied, Megatron had him helping Scorponok and Tarantulas on top of all the cleaning and working the register.

It was exhausting. But Megatron wasn’t the kind of person who took no for an answer. And it was only until they found someone to replace _he who must not be named._

Dinobot seemed to have vanished. He’d blocked everyone who worked at The Predacon on Facebook. He didn’t respond to any texts. It wasn’t like he and Waspinator had been _friends_, but it was a little weird not having him around. Waspinator guessed he’d gone back to Philadelphia.

Megatron was… handling it. He did not mention Dinobot, and interrupted anyone who started to in his presence—Waspinator was pretty sure Tarantulas had started doing it on purpose—but he wasn’t as far off the deep end as Waspinator would have expected. They’d been together for a long time, longer than Waspinator had known either of them. Fights weren’t infrequent. Sometimes Dinobot would leave for a while and come back. This time felt different… but Megatron wasn’t acting any different. It was like he thought Dinobot would change his mind.

Waspinator couldn’t keep up with it all. He hoped everything would go back to some semblance of normal soon.

The second that thought manifested in his Waspinator’s mind, Megatron called him over.

“Megatron needed something from Waspinator…?” he asked, trying to juggle in his head the other 12 things he was supposed to be doing.

Waspinator did not like the way Megatron smirked at him.

“_Yes_, you could say that. I found a fascinating event last night,” Megatron said, and handed Waspinator a piece of paper he’d printed off at home. “A baking competition. And it’s not far away.”

“Megatron… wants to enter?” Waspinator asked, glancing at the flyer nervously.

“Oh, _no,_ it’s too late for that. But there are some familiar names that are going to be competing,” Megatron said.

A sinking feeling in his gut, Waspinator read over the flyer more carefully. He spotted Optimus’s name on the list first, and then… Dinobot. Of course.

“It’s in a couple of days. I think we should attend. To show our… support, _yes_,” Megatron continued, a dangerous smile taking over his face. “But there are a few things I need you to do for me first.”

Waspinator had a very bad feeling about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pssst! I'm on [tumblr](https://miniconsuffrage.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/miniconsuffrage)!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, the duel commences. But, what was supposed to be a fair fight between two equally-matched opponents... isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo.... My bad? 
> 
> This chapter wasn't in the original draft, and for some reason, it absolutely killed me to write. I scrapped the whole thing and started over from scratch twice before I managed this version. I cannot tell you the relief I feel being done with it and not having to look at it anymore. On the bright side, it is 7k words long! That's going to be about par for the course for the rest of the fic, honestly. 
> 
> That said, I am genuinely sorry about the wait. The next couple of chapters also, for the most part, were not in the original draft, but I've hit a decent writing groove this past month, and while I am "Essential," I've also had a lot of hours cut, so, plenty of free time! (I am safe and doing fine, and I hope all of you are as well!)

Three weeks passed in a flash, and Optimus found himself in Connecticut, in front of a crowd, being introduced by a woman in a clip-on microphone and a flashy dress.

"And last but not least, we have Optimus Prime Jr., also hailing from Providence! He recently moved here from Philadelphia to head up the new Maximal Bakery, which has been making waves!" Flareup announced. "It's got some great Yelp reviews, but let's see how he does when the pressure is on!"

Optimus smiled at her good-naturedly, but he was a little more concerned with the person glaring daggers at him from the next table over.

The competition was being held in a convention center that looked more like an upscale barn along a long, backcountry road. Signs outside advertised the various offering—along with the weekend’s cooking competitions, there was apple cider tasting, carnival-type games, and interactive stalls set up by various local restaurants. It wasn’t quite a county fair, but it had the feel.

The competition itself was in the middle of a large room with a high ceiling, with half the floor blocked taken up with a short stage with six tables in two rows. Along one wall were shelves of baking materials and six ovens. Another wall was covered in stands where people could sit and watch.

Rhinox, Rattrap and Cheetor had found front row seats for themselves, so they were up close and personal with whatever Optimus would create. Which meant they would also be able to keep a close eye on Dinobot.

Optimus didn't know if their tables being right next to each other was coincidence or something Dinobot had requested. He'd wanted to talk to him before the whole thing started, but he'd barely arrived before he'd been ushered onto the stage and told to familiarize himself with his workstation. It wasn't a bad setup, for a small production like this—he had a table to himself, with his own ingredients, his own pans and utensils, mixer, and one oven along the back wall reserved for him. And while having Dinobot right next door might be a little distracting, at least it meant he didn't have to look far to see how his main competitor was doing.

As Flareup explained the rules to the audience, Dinobot seemed to have had enough glaring and spoke to him. "You actually showed up," he commented.

"I said I would," he answered.

"Hn. Forgive my surprise at finding a Maximal with a shred of honor," Dinobot said.

Well, that seemed a little hypocritical, coming from someone who worked with Megatron. Whether it was in the past or not, if Optimus wasn't mistaken, they'd been together for a number of years.

"We don't have to do this, you know," Optimus said. He didn't think Dinobot would be interested in hearing what he had to say, but he still needed to say it. "If you're looking for a job, we can have that discussion. We don't have to compete."

The sound Dinobot made could only be described as a snarl. "I will not be led by incompetent fools any longer. This is how it will be."

Optimus grit his teeth in annoyance. He didn't think he'd ever had the opportunity to _do _anything that would make Dinobot think he was incompetent. "Look, I don't know what happened between you and Megatron, but—"

Evidently, that was the wrong thing to say. Dinobot stiffened, his nostrils flaring. _"Megatron_ has no influence on my current actions, save for this—he's running his business into the ground. I intend to help him along," he said, his fists clenched. For a moment, Optimus genuinely thought he might start a physical confrontation, right there on stage. "And to do that, I need you _out of the way."_

He turned away then, and before Optimus could respond, Flareup called for the bakers to get ready to hear the first challenge. He gave Dinobot one last glance, but Dinobot was no longer looking at him. Instead, his gaze was fixed on Flareup as she prepared to lift the lid off a platter that would contain their theme and required ingredients. 

Optimus put Dinobot out of his head. Getting frustrated at this point wouldn't get him anywhere. At least no one could say he hadn't tried. 

* * *

"And our first theme is..." Flareup started, her hand on the platter, with an unnecessarily long pause for dramatic effect. Then, she lifted it with a flourish. "...chocolate! We're starting off easy, and giving you a chance to stretch your creative muscles. You can make anything you like, as long as it uses chocolate—the more the better! And your clock starts... now!"

Recipes cycled through Dinobot's head. This was a _very_ good challenge for a pastry chef—there was plenty he could do with chocolate. He had to forcibly clamp down on a feeling of triumph. He hadn't won yet, so there was no use celebrating, but he was feeling pretty good about the whole thing so far. 

Quickly, he settled on cheesecake. It wasn't hard, it tasted good, and it was a way he could show off his decorating talents. They were being judged on various metrics, but aesthetics was one area Dinobot knew he had leg up on Optimus, who was by all accounts a good baker, but was not a pastry artist. He set up the double boiler for the chocolate and dumped cream cheese and sugar into the mixer.

Usually, when Dinobot baked he was able to achieve a sort of flow state. He knew what needed to be done, and he knew how he was going to do it. Here, things were a little bit different. The crowd didn't bother him, but he was not entirely focused on his own project—he also wanted to keep an eye on his competitor's. 

He glanced over to Optimus's table whenever he had a moment to spare, hoping to find some clue as to what he was putting together. It was hard to tell, just having ingredients to go on and no commentary or measurements to observe, but judging by the cupcake tray he'd prepared, that at least narrowed down the options. 

Optimus had his pan ready to put in the oven before Dinobot did, but this didn't worry Dinobot much. He was just putting his crust together, and he knew he would have enough time to do what he wanted. Rather than one big cheesecake, he found a silicon cube-shaped mold which would work perfectly for his purposes. Making smaller individual cheesecakes would make them bake and then cool faster, and he would be able to show off his ability to make exact, uniform decorations. He put the crust inside each cube and spooned in the filling until it was level with the top. While it baked and then sat in the blast freezer, he would be able to prepare his decorations. The whole thing would come together very quickly, then.

As soon as he got to his oven, Dinobot realized with a sinking feeling in his gut that he'd hit a little bit of a roadblock.

His oven wasn't preheated. It wasn't even on.

Dinobot _knew_ he hadn't seen any of his competitors touch their ovens at the beginning of the competition, and many of them were in the process of putting their pans inside, so this was not a failing on his part. Carefully, he set his pan down, and then marched over to find the nearest event staff.

None of the help he found was particularly _helpful._

"I know I turned this on," said the volunteer he'd grabbed, looking puzzled. "Everyone else'e worked fine. I wonder if something is wrong with it..."

"I did not come all the way here to compete only for my chances to be ruined because something is _wrong with an oven_," Dinobot snapped. It may have been a little harsh, but this was absolutely the _last_ thing he needed right now.

They gathered some attention. Of all people, Optimus walked over.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

_"No,"_ Dinobot said. "Somehow, I happen to be the only person here who's oven wasn't on."

"Oh," Optimus said, brows furrowed. "Well, you can use mine. My muffins will be out in just a minute."

Dinobot had opened his mouth to refuse when the volunteer interrupted him. "Oh, that would be great! It'll give us time to see if there's anything going wrong with this one or if it was just a mistake before the next round," he said. "I don't know how this could have happened... It's been working fine all week."

Dinobot scowled at Optimus as the volunteer scampered away to check out the wiring or some such thing. "Why?" he demanded. "You could use this as an advantage."

"I'm sure they would have given you extra time. Your oven having issues isn't your fault," Optimus said, crouching down to take a peek through the glass at his muffins. "Besides, that wouldn't be a very honorable victory for me, would it?"

Well. No, Dinobot supposed it wouldn't be. He didn’t dignify that with an answer, and refused to ponder it further.

A minute or so later, Optimus pulled his tray from the oven and Dinobot slipped his own in behind it. He'd lost a few minutes to this whole debacle, so he very much needed to get the next step into motion. He stirred his tempering chocolate, and while that was going, he grabbed the rest of the materials he wanted. It couldn't be anything too busy, but she had said the more chocolate the better.

Ultimately, when the bell went off and the challenge came to an end, Dinobot had four small cheesecake cubes covered in perfectly smooth chocolate, each topped with a single raspberry atop a white chocolate pedestal. It was a minimalist piece of edible art. Optimus's muffins were sure to taste good, and he had drizzled them with white chocolate and had stuck some hardened chocolate flair into them, so they looked distinctive, but they weren't on Dinobot's level. 

Sure enough, once the judging for the round took place, the results came out much the way Dinobot thought they would—Dinobot came in 2nd place, with Optimus in 4th. Dinobot smirked, and glanced over at Optimus to see his reaction, but the man just smiled and nodded graciously.

Fine. It was only the first of three challenges. Dinobot couldn't afford to rest on his laurels yet. 

The next theme was announced—pie. Each contestant would pick a type of pie out of a hat and would have to create their best version of whatever they pulled. That could go a variety of ways. Different pies were picked before him—apple, pumpkin, pecan, key lime—Dinobot held his breath as he reached in and pulled out the slip of paper.

Rhubarb. Dinobot could work with this.

He watched as Optimus pulled out his and read it out—lemon meringue.

The timer started, and Dinobot got to work. For him, the crust was what would make or break it. Rhubarb was a strong taste that not everyone enjoyed, so getting the filling right was important, but the crust was what would tie it all together. Pie crust from scratch could be very unforgiving to those not accustomed to making it. It needed to look and taste amazing. 

He got his filling ready and set it aside to focus on putting the crust together. Dinobot was completely in the zone now. He chopped up the chilled butter, put the dough together, divided it in two and started rolling it out—

There was a loud crash from one table over. The next thing Dinobot knew, Optimus was on the floor, a puddle of water and a shattered bowl of beaten eggs next to him.

Before Dinobot could even react, the same volunteer staff jumped onto the stage and checked up on him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, helping Optimus up.

"Fine," Optimus said, carefully checking the floor before he stepped back. "I just slipped. I…didn't realize there was a puddle of water there."

Dinobot looked at the mess he'd made. If Optimus wasn’t responsible for the puddle... Well, he didn't see anywhere else the water could have come from. It wasn't raining outside. Was something leaking...?

They were talking about the eggs. “I can get you more, but we’ll have to clean up the glass first, it'll just take a minute," the volunteer was saying.

For a moment that seemed an eternity, Dinobot hesitated. This could very well be the end of it. If Dinobot beat Optimus this round, the game was won. But he’d said he wanted a fair fight. If Dinobot only won because of the minutes Optimus had lost…

He grabbed his carton of untouched eggs and shoved them in Optimus's hands.

"I don't need these this round,” he said, refusing to look Optimus in the eye.

"Oh. Well, thank you," Optimus said, tilting his head curiously at him. "You didn't have to help me."

"You slipped. It would not have been an honorable defeat," Dinobot said. 

"Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, great," the volunteer said, looking a little confused, but he grabbed supplies to clean up the mess on the floor with and Optimus was able to continue on with the challenge. Dinobot didn't have time to just stand around, either—he had a pie crust to finish. He resolutely ignored Optimus for the rest of the challenge.

It had been the right thing to do. If he hadn't, he might have won, but he'd always know that it hadn't been an honorable defeat, and that was what mattered. 

He kept telling himself this as it was announced that he'd come in 3rd place, with Optimus in 2nd. Dinobot's pie crust had been beautiful and texture-wise was perfect, but the judges thought the filling was too strong. While Dinobot had been concerned with losing points for cutting it with something sweeter like strawberries, it seemed that wasn't the correct choice. 

No matter. Dinobot would best him in the final round. 

This one was going to be a brutal fight. The challenge they announced was bread.

"This one is going to be a little different!" Flareup announced to both the competitors and the crowd. "We all know bread takes time to rise, and you've been hard at work baking these wonderful dishes for us. And the audience has been sitting here for a while! We wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to enjoy the festival, so this challenge is going to be split into two parts. You'll make your dough, set it aside, and we'll reconvene in a few hours for the judging. You decide when during that time you'll be putting your loaves in the oven, as long as it's ready by judging time! After that we'll be able to announce the overall winners!"

So this was what it came down to. Optimus had a leg up on Dinobot here, he knew that. The Maximal Bakery had always been more focused on artisanal breads than on pastries. But that didn't mean Dinobot was incapable—he could make a mean loaf, and he _would, _here, to take the victory. Over Optimus. He didn't care much about beating the other competitors. He would just have to focus on his strengths, which would be the visual. Something round, symmetrical and artfully scored, that tasted amazing to boot. 

They all launched into action as soon as the clock began, putting their dough together with varying amounts of the same handful of ingredients. It always astounded Dinobot, when he really thought about it, that something could be so simple and complex at the same time, so accessible and yet something he was able to make a living out of. It only made him want it all the more. A bakery of his own, where he wouldn't have to play nice with a supervisor or worry about hurting their feelings, wouldn't have to argue with anyone or fight to be heard. That was all he really wanted. And he was going to get it.

Dinobot got his bread out of the mixer and had just started to knead by hand when he heard the sound of something shattering overhead.

A few things happened in the span of only a second or two. A light went out. The crowd gasped. And Dinobot got a shower of light pieces of glass showered upon him. 

Instinctively, he froze and closed his eyes, not wanting to walk into something _worse_, and not wanting to look up for fear of being blinded.

It stopped a few seconds later, and everything was deathly still. It seemed safe enough to open his eyes, so he did, and took in the wreckage. There was glass littered everywhere in his area. It looked like it had come from a few long lightbulbs making up the industrial lighting the place used, and while Dinobot himself seemed to have come out of the little explosion relatively unscathed, the same could not be said for his dough.

There were little pieces of glass all over it, and all over his table, and his ingredients, and the floor. He'd have to start all over again from the beginning.

When he looked back on it later, Dinobot didn't know what made him look up into the crowd, to study them for the first time. Most likely, nothing at all. But in that moment, he stood there, surrounded with glass, and he looked up, and there, sitting on the top row of the stands, was Megatron.

They made eye contact, and Megatron grinned down at him.

Dinobot saw red.

"Is everyone alright?" Flamewar asked, jogging over with her microphone turned off. "Oh, this is awful. You two are just having the worst luck today, aren't you? I'm so sorry about this."

It was only then that Dinobot realized he wasn't the only one who had had glass rained down on him. Optimus, too, had his workspace and his dough covered in the little shards. He'd grabbed a towel and was gently trying to brush them off the top of his curly hair. 

"I think I'm okay," Optimus reassured her. "Oh, Dinobot—you're bleeding."

So he was. Not badly, but a little cut on his arm had started to drip just the tiniest bit. Dinobot had been too well trained in health and safety regulations to let that go. He stepped over the glass and walked over to the sink on the back wall to wash up and grab a bandage, shaking his shirt out to get the tiny shards of glass off as he went. 

When he'd finished and turned around, Optimus was waiting at a respectable distance to do the same. Dinobot stepped aside.

"I regret to inform you that this has ceased to be a fair fight," he said stiffly. "My intention was for us to compete without outside interference, and be judged only according to our strengths, but there is now no doubt in my mind that these... _hiccups_ have been premeditated."

Optimus looked confused. "What do you mean?" he asked. Dinobot nodded his head in the crowd's direction, and Optimus looked out at it for a few moments before understanding dawned on his face. He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Well, that's just prime."

He washed his hands and turned back to Dinobot as he dried them. "Well, what do you want to do? I'd like to finish the competition."

"I would as well. It's only fair to the organizers," Dinobot said. "I would also like to have some... _very_ strong words with Megatron during the break."

"I've got some words for him myself," Optimus muttered. He folded his arms over his chest and watched the volunteers scramble to clean everything up so the two of them could start their dough again. "Well, you know he didn't do all this himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he brought everyone else with him, too. Which means we all need to watch our backs."

The other four competitors were just about done with their dough and ready to leave, so Flamewar switched her microphone back on.and explained that they were starting the break now, and that Optimus and Dinobot were fine and would be getting extra time to make up for the slight setback.

"I should... apologize," Dinobot said, even though it hurt him to speak the words. "I did not intend for this to happen. You shouldn't have been roped into something that doesn't concern you."

"Oh, it absolutely concerns me," Optimus said. "You know he's been messing with us for weeks, and this is the first time he's actually shown his face. I don't know what happened between you two and it's none of my business, but I have some things I'd like to settle now, if we have the chance."

"...of course," Dinobot said, slightly taken aback. Honestly, he hadn't thought Optimus had it in him to provoke a face-to-face confrontation the likes of which Megatron was capable of, but if that was what he wanted... Not only was it necessary, it was an honorable response. Dinobot found himself almost impressed.

The crowd had filtered out of the room to almost nothing, and Megatron had disappeared with them. Dinobot tracked him with his eyes until he went through the doorway and vanished. He'd have to find him again, once his dough was finished and safely proofing. Predictably, Optimus's employees stayed behind and waited for him by the stage. Optimus walked off to talk with them. Dinobot hesitated, not particularly wanting to intrude on a conversation he wasn't welcome in, but if Optimus was serious...

Dinobot trailed behind behind him and joined their little group.

* * *

The thing was... if Rattrap had wanted to watch Food Network, he could have done it at home. That would have been more interesting. On TV, they at least did timeskips. But no. Here, he had to sit and watch every minute of these guys make their dishes. Like he didn't get enough of this at work.

"But he's our friend," Cheetor said, sounding like he couldn't _believe_ Rattrap would say he was bored and wanted to go do something else. And why was he even surprised? The kid was probably having the time of his life, watching some _real pastry artists_ work their magic, or some other BS. Rattrap was surprised he hadn't pulled out a notepad and a pen to take notes with. 

"Yeah, sure. I don't think he cares whether I'm here for this, though. He hasn't even looked our way in ages," Rattrap pointed out. But he didn't _actually_ leave. Not yet.

No, Rattrap sat there and watched. He watched Optimus let their _enemy_ use his oven, like a chump. He watched Optimus get a lower score because of it, when he easily could have just kept his big mouth shut. He watched them each pick a pie out of a hat. He watched Optimus drop the beginnings of his meringue all over the floor, and watched the volunteers clean it up.

"There's no way," Rattrap said. "He's gonna lose.”

"You don't know that," Rhinox said evenly.

"It's all in the crust. You know that," Rattrap said. "What's he gonna do with a meringue? You know they love the artsy stuff. And then he drops all his eggs? It ain't happenin'. If Dinobot becomes our boss I'm quitting day one, mark my words."

"He's not gonna lose," Cheetor said, but he sounded worried.

"Sure, kid. I'm gonna take a break," Rattrap said, and slipped out of his seat and out the door before either of them could stop him. The challenge was almost over, so he'd miss the judging, but he didn't particularly care. It was too much sitting around. 

There wasn't a ton going on outside this room. Most of the building was the auditorium space, with what was essentially a wide hallway running alongside it and a door at each end. There were stalls set up along one wall, and Rattrap walked by those at enough of a distance that he was able to vaguely see what they were there for without being close enough that they would try to talk to him. A couple microbreweries, a couple farmers showing off their wares or advertising gardening classes. There was one for some lady's homemade pottery. Not super stimulating stuff, but it was an excuse for him to stretch his legs.

He ducked out the closest door and stepped to the side to have a smoke, and made it last as long as he could. When he came back in, the first thing that caught his eye was a familiar figure milling around nervously.

Waspinator.

"Hey!" he shouted, causing plenty of people to look up at him in confusion, but he only cared about Waspinator laying eyes on him and flinching. _Good. _Rattrap started to advance on him. "What in the hell are you doing here, you little creep?"

Waspinator bolted. Rattrap started to run after him, not giving a second thought to the bewildered looks he was getting. Waspinator made for the other door, and Rattrap reached it just a few seconds later, but when he looked around, the Pred had vanished. 

There were more activities outside—a big blow up bouncy castle, some weird-looking gray structure off to the side that he couldn't identify, some outdoor games—and a few people were walking around there with their small children. Rattrap looked around those activities briefly, then jogged the perimeter of the sizable convention center. No sign of him. He couldn't have just _vanished,_ but it didn't look like Rattrap was going to find him like this.

…Eh. It was probably more important to go back and warn the other guys, anyway. Rattrap slipped back inside and back into the auditorium, where people were just starting to file out. Clearly he'd missed something—an intermission, maybe? Rattrap weaved in and out of the crowd until he found his coworkers standing by the stage.

"Hey, bad news, gang. I saw Waspinator outside," he said.

Nobody looked surprised at this information, which was a _little_ irritating. "Megatron is here, too," Optimus explained. "Looks like he's left the auditorium now, but he has to be around here somewhere."

Just then, Dinobot stepped over from behind Optimus. Rattrap could feel his metaphorical hackles rise. "He won't have gone far," Dinobot sneered. "He won't want to miss any opportunity to make life difficult for other people."

"Hey, who invited you?" Rattrap demanded.

Optimus held up a hand. "We aren't fighting each other right now," he said firmly.

"And why not?"

"You missed it, the lights exploded on top of them and glass got _everywhere_," Cheetor said, then turned to Optimus and Dinobot. "That was Megatron?"

"It’s too much of a coincidence to be anything else," Optimus said.

"So? That doesn't mean this guy is trustworthy," Rattrap said. "He was probably in on it! You can't tell me this isn't something he'd do."

"Rattrap? Drop it. We're going to find Megatron and get this worked out once and for all. I'm tired of just waiting to get the next thing he does on camera. If he's got an issue, he can say it to my face," Optimus said. "If Dinobot wants to come along, he's welcome to."

Rattrap rolled his eyes. "And what are you gonna do? Beat him up?"

"We're going to find him, and we're going to talk," Optimus said, his jaw clenched. Rattrap snorted. Yeah, sure. He needed to see this. If nothing else, it would be entertainment enough to last him months. It was going to end badly, of course, but at least it would be fun. He just didn't see why that meant _Dinobot_ had to come along. "But first, we're going to remake our dough so we can finish the challenge."

"What happened to it?" Rattrap asked.

"Glass. A lot of it," Optimus explained.

Yeesh. The longer they stood there waiting, the more of a headstart Megatron and Waspinator and who knew how many of the rest of them would have, but this was something they weren't willing to budge on. So, Rhinox, Cheetor and Rattrap sat back down and waited for the area to be cleaned up, then waited for them to make their dough and get it ready. Dinobot's, at least, was a simple shape. Optimus had to be an overachiever and do braided challah for his. It looked nice, though. 

Cheetor let Rattrap know about everything he'd missed while he was gone—if the boss had actually managed to do better than Dinobot during the pie round, he might actually have a chance with this.

Finally, Optimus and Dinobot hopped off the stage. "Alright. Where did you see Waspinator?" Optimus asked.

"He was out in the lobby. I chased him outside and then lost sight of him," Rattrap said.

"I can't imagine he's making much of an effort to hide," Optimus said. "We'll just walk around until we find him."

So, they did. There was no sign of them out and about the booths inside, so that just left the outdoors to explore. The five of them went out and took a closer look at the activities going on there. A lot of them were like old-timey carnival games that didn't seem to have a lot to do with food, except for some of the prizes you could win. There was a ringtoss, a watergun game, and a dunk pit. Now that everyone had been released from the auditorium, it was a lot more crowded out here, so they were having to look more carefully.

They ended up on the edge of the weird structure, which, now that Rattrap could see better, looked like it was a smaller-scale version of Stonehenge. Just, out here in this field in Connecticut. There were random kids running through the stones (they couldn't have been real stones, right? Probably just painted styrofoam or something), and a guy sat on a chair next to it like a minder at a fancy museum. Something looked familiar about him...

"I hope someone pushes those rocks the hell over real soon," Rhinox muttered under his breath, just loud enough that Rattrap could hear. Rattrap's head whipped back to look at him.

"Wh—" he started, but Cheetor interrupted him.

"Hey, isn't that the health inspector?"

Back Rattrap's head went in the other direction, along with a feeling of whiplash. The guy _did_ look just like the health inspector, except for the fact that he was wearing a pinstriped vest instead of a suit. But what would a health inspector from Providence be doing in Connecticut taking care of a mini Stonehenge? Rattrap opened his mouth to ask as much, but—

"There!" Dinobot shouted, pointing at the far side of the cluster of rocks, and there were Terrorsaur and Waspinator, each poking their heads out from behind a slab. Before Rattrap could even get a handle on _that_ situation or what they were going to do about it, Dinobot grabbed a weighted ball from the carnival game beside them and hefted it at their faces.

On a normal day, Rattrap would have loved to see a Pred get hit in the face with just about anything. Today Dinobot's aim was off. He hit one of the rocks instead. It wobbled backwards for a moment, and then tipped over the other direction, causing a few of the other rocks to fall over like a bunch of giant dominos. Children ran screaming, and the closest one... was headed _right for Rhinox_.

Rattrap’s heart leapt into his throat. He could just _see_ Rhinox get squished right before him—right before Rhinox jumped out of the way at the last second. 

This was just too much in too short a span of time. Rattrap snapped.

"What is your problem?" he demanded, whirling on Dinobot. "I bet you did that on purpose, you slimy—"

"Rattrap, it was an accident," Optimus said, getting between them before Rattrap could start anything. 

"Says you! He almost killed Rhinox!"

"It—it wouldn't have _killed_ him," Dinobot defended, but he did look a little chastised, at least. 

"Rattrap. You need to calm down," Optimus said. It just made Rattrap even more mad, that Optimus was willing to defend this guy for _no reason_, he'd done absolutely _nothing_ to make them trust him, and yet somehow Rattrap was the bad guy.

Suddenly, Rattrap felt the presence of someone behind him. He peeked over his shoulder and found health inspector dude lookalike there, arms clasped behind him, just looking at them. Rattrap couldn't exactly place why, but it was super creepy. He was looking at them like... like he didn't recognize them. And they'd just messed up his Stonehenge exhibit or whatever, but there was zero detectable emotion on his face.

"Uh... We're sorry, about all this. It was an accident," Optimus repeated.

"Guys, we gotta go! They're getting away," Cheetor pointed out, and sure enough, Terrorsaur and Waspinator had started _running_ across the field. 

"We'll be back to make amends, I promise," Optimus said, and quickly walked away after them. Rattrap and the rest of the group followed close behind. Rattrap did not want to be left alone with that guy. He didn't even try to stop them, just watched them leave. _Weird._

Rattrap put himself next to Rhinox. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

"I'm fine," Rhinox said. "You don't need to get into fights for me, y'know. I can take care of myself."

"I know... just pisses me off, is all," Rattrap mumbled. So yeah, it had scared him, but he wasn't going to say that. He didn’t need to. Rhinox got him.

They didn't have to run to follow the Preds, because there was only one place they could possibly be going. There was a shed-like structure to the side of the main building that looked like it was used for extra storage space, and they headed right for it. The Maximal crew (plus Dinobot) made it to the doors soon after. There was no telling what they'd find in there, aside from, hopefully, Predacons. 

Optimus took a deep breath to steel himself and threw open the double doors. 

The space was clearly being used for storage, but seeing as this was a food-based event, a lot of what they were storing was food. There were wooden tables lining the space, holding what were probably extra supplies for the other competitions they were holding over the course of the event, and one table devoted to platters of food ready for that night’s dinner. And in the middle of it all, Megatron—posed like he was waiting for them, leaning back on the table behind him with an air of smug nonchalance, and the rest of his stupid Predacon employees gathered around him. It looked like this was going to be a real showdown. 

"Megatron," Optimus greeted tersely. 

"What a pleasant surprise, seeing you all here," Megatron said. "You've put on quite the performance, I must say. I've enjoyed watching."

"I'm sure you have, you disgusting—" Dinobot started, but Megatron cut him off.

"Actually, I was talking to Optimus,” Megatron said in a patronizing tone.

Rattrap's eyes bugged out. He looked up and watched the expression on Dinobot's face merge from angry to absolutely murderous. Oh, this was going to be _so _juicy. 

"Megatron, I have to say I'm sick of whatever is going on between our bakeries," Optimus said. "I know you don't like me, but this has to end. What do we have to do to get you to leave us alone?"

"Oh, that's a very simple answer, _yes_," Megatron smiled. "I'll stop as soon as you go out of business."

"That isn't going to happen," Optimus said stiffly.

"Then I suppose we've found ourselves at an impasse."

Rattrap _so_ wanted to punch his smug bastard face, but he had a feeling he was going to have to get in line. He looked to his side, and a different idea popped into his head. It was a bad one, probably, but oh... it would be so satisfying. 

The next moment, Rattrap's hands moved almost of their own accord. He grabbed a carton of eggs that was lying out on one of the tables, slipped one of the eggs out of it, and chucked it right at Megatron.

Rattrap, unlike a certain ex-Predacon, had good aim. He nailed Megatron right in the forehead. 

It was deathly still for a moment. Then, the whole place went absolutely _nuts._

Rattrap had been involved in a few food fights back in his day. It had been a while, but he could say unequivocally that none of them compared to this. It was every man for himself—he couldn't really keep track of what happening to the rest of them, because Rattrap ended up facing off against Tarantulas, who was creepy and weird and _absolutely_ deserved getting a pitcher of icy lemonade upended over his head. Tarantulas retaliated by smashing a cupcake into Rattrap's nose and holding it there so he couldn't breathe. It took Rattrap a few seconds of flailing to dislodge him, and then he had to blow icing out of his nose. 

The whole thing was chaos, and Rattrap had no idea how long it lasted. All he did know was that when someone else unrelated to the madness opened the door, everyone went still. And the little shed was absolutely _wrecked._

It was all pretty anticlimactic, in the end. They nearly had the cops called on them. Megatron and his goonies slipped away. Optimus and Dinobot got disqualified from the competition for getting into a fight and also ruining all that food, which cost the place money. Optimus apologized profusely and promised to compensate them for it. Which was all nice and good for him, but the five of them were still covered in slowly drying gunk and still had to make it back to Providence.

Dinobot practically begged them to judge their loaves unofficially, just so they would know. Flareup flat-out refused. Dinobot was very quiet after that.

They washed up as best they could in the bathroom.

"Think they'll leave us alone after all that?" Rattrap finally ventured to no one in particular.

"Probably not," Optimus sighed. "But if that's how it's going to be, fine. He wants a war, he can have one."

"Great," Rattrap sighed. What an ending that would have been to the legendary feud—but Rattrap knew he was right. There was no way Megaboob wasn't gonna use this as an excuse to do something really stupid in retaliation.

They all started to wander back to the car together, but Dinobot hung back.

"Do you need a ride back?" Optimus asked.

"No," Dinobot said at the same time that Rattrap thought it, because seriously? Stuffing _Dinobot_ in the back seat with Rattrap and Cheetor for the hour and a half (at least!) it would take to get home? Absolutely not. "I have made other arrangements."

"Alright. Well..." Optimus hesitated, seeming reluctant to just walk away. Rattrap crossed his arms over his chest and huffed, waiting for him to get on with it so they could all go home. "I know this didn't work out the way either of us expected. Why don't you come by the bakery tomorrow and we can talk?"

It was hard to tell what Dinobot was thinking since he looked so constipated all the time, but he sorta stiffened. "I will... consider it."

Great. Awesome. Rattrap rolled his eyes and followed his coworkers back to the car. They stopped at a Sonic outside Hartford, since nobody had eaten all day. Other than that, the trip was pretty quiet. That was absolutely fine by Rattrap. He took the opportunity to curl up against the door and take a nap.

He wasn't too surprised when Dinobot showed up at the bakery the next day, this time much more quietly asking to see Optimus. The boss took him into the back, and Rattrap listened in as best he could from behind the door.

_"We don't have a pastry chef right now,"_ Optimus told him. _"And Cheetor really wants to learn."_

_"You'd have me make myself redundant?"_ Dinobot asked.

_"No. It's going to be a long time before he's ready to be a head pastry chef,"_ Optimus assured him. _"And I understand you may not want to stay in town very long. You wouldn't be under any obligation for any length of time. You're welcome to stay here until you're able to find something else."_

_"I... would have to think about it," _Dinobot said.

_"Of course. Here, this has my e-mail address and phone number. Just let me know,"_ Optimus said. _"But the job is yours if you want it."_

Dinobot left soon after. And a couple days after that, Optimus was formally introducing them to their new coworker. Of course, Cheetor was over the moon. But Rattrap?

Rattrap just knew this was going to end badly.

* * *

Tarantulas disabled the security system, unlocked the doors, and slipped inside The Predacon by moonlight, so early in the morning that the streets were nearly devoid of cars. He walked straight to the shop's computer and changed the camera settings with practiced ease. He had a couple of hours now, where the camera would loop only the darkness of an empty bakery. He would come back once his shift actually started, and insert the footage of him coming into the building and getting started with the morning's tasks. 

Before he got started on his _real_ work, something caught his eye on the second screen—the one used for keeping an eye on the Maximal Bakery. All the camera feeds were dead. Tarantulas rewound them to the previous evening, and sure enough...

He watched Rhinox carry a ladder to each one, climb up, and dismantle them. All of them, one by one. And Dinobot was there in the background, pointing them out and watching. 

"Interesting..." Tarantulas chuckled to himself. Megatron would discover this tomorrow, and it would ruin the good mood he'd gained from their supposed win in Hartford, but Tarantulas found his mind racing. He would have to keep an eye on this development, watch it progress. Perhaps it was something he could work with.

Tarantulas indulged himself in a good laugh, the sound of it filling up the quiet, empty bakery. He reset the cameras, queued a good playlist, and got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This seems like a good time to mention that I have a [Yeast Wars-specific blog](https://yeastwars.tumblr.com/)! It doesn't get used a ton, but I do post updates there sometimes, and other fun posts that remind me of the Yeast Wars Extended Universe, and you should _definitely_ go look at the fanart if you haven't yet!!
> 
> Share on [tumblr](https://yeastwars.tumblr.com/post/616334798148026368/chapters-436-fandom-transformers-all-media) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/miniconsuffrage/status/1253880490085494784?s=20)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarantulas does something weird to Cheetor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to skip The Web. How do you put _that_ into a bakery setting? I didn't think it could be done...... But [Wrathe](https://wrathematics.tumblr.com/) gave me an idea I could work with and [Manfred](https://megatronwillreturn.tumblr.com/) helped make it much funnier (as well as giving me important spider facts), so... here we are! :)
> 
> If you've got arachnophobia..... be careful?? There's spiders in this one. (For those who like spiders: rest assured none are harmed)

During the month or so since The Incident in Hartford, Cheetor had altered his morning routine.

For the most part, it stayed the same. He still got up before the sun, even though his shifts never started until at least 6AM. Someday he would be there before dawn with the rest of them, and he wanted to be ready. He still showered, brushed his teeth, drank a bottle of water, and slipped a pill box with the day's meds into his pocket so he wouldn't forget to take it later. He still skipped breakfast, knowing there would be better food at the bakery anyway. He still watched Youtube videos until it was time to leave for work. None of that changed.

He still jogged to work almost every day, with one small deviation—he'd added a few minutes to his commute by stopping by The Predacon every day. 

He wasn't actually going inside. That would just be asking for trouble. And he tried to stay out of sight and not dawdle too much, because there was no way they didn't have cameras watching the place from all directions. But every day, he came by and took a moment to pause and look inside from across the street, looking for any and every piece of information he could possibly gain. Anything at all—employee schedules, routines, a glimpse of the kitchen through a door swinging shut—anything Cheetor learned and observed, he wrote down in a little notebook. He hadn't managed to come up with much that seemed useful yet, but he was going to keep at it until he found something.

Today felt different. Cheetor didn't know what it was—something in the air, the early morning mist left behind by a night rain, or maybe it was a full moon or something. But when Cheetor looked over and saw that the lights were on after opening but nobody was at the front desk...

Cheetor stowed his bag in an alley and jogged over, peering inside the lit-up windows. This early, before even the early morning rush hour traffic had really gotten into full swing, it was usually just Tarantulas. Sometimes Cheetor ran by in time to watch him turn on the lights and unlock the doors, and then he disappeared back into the kitchen. Until Waspinator or Scorponok or someone else came by to stay at the counter, he just left it alone, only to reappear when the ding of the front door's bell sounded.

He wanted to go inside. He was early enough, now, that he thought he could get in and out without being caught—so, he steeled himself, then slipped through the front door and dove for the counter. By the time he heard the door to the kitchen swing open, Cheetor was safely crouched in front of the counter and out of view. He was in plain view of anyone else coming through the front door or CCTV cameras, but unless Tarantulas decided to come around the counter...

"...Hm," came Tarantulas's voice. Then came the sound of the kitchen door swinging back on its hinges. Cheetor waited, holding his breath until he was sure Tarantulas had really gone back inside. 

Alright! So that had gone great, Cheetor thought in relief. Then, he realized he hadn't come in here with a plan. What did he think he was going to do from behind the counter? What if another customer came in and saw him?

Cheetor pushed those worries away. This was only a fact-finding mission. Surely there would be _something_ of use up here.

He crawled around the counter and started looking behind it for something of use. Below the cash register there were shelves with all kinds of papers and scraps stowed away. Mostly, they were old receipts and office supplies. Occasionally there were recipes printed off from the internet with notes scribbled in the margins in handwriting Cheetor couldn't read. None of it seemed particularly important, except maybe the shipping invoices that showed where The Predacon got its supplies from. Not wanting to leave completely empty handed, Cheetor snapped a quick photo of those so he could add the information to his notebook.

The kitchen door swung open. Cheetor startled so badly he hit his head on one of the shelves. Scorponok—when had he gotten here?—stood in the doorway, staring at him with a dumbfounded look on his face.

It didn't take long for him to shift to outrage. "Hey!" he shouted, and lunged for Cheetor just as Cheetor sprung to his feet and out of reach. 

Cheetor ran, and once he was out the door kept running, because he was fast and he knew Scorponok would never be able to catch up with him. He only stopped when he was blocks away, once he remembered his bag he'd left in the alley. Nobody had followed him, so he circled back. Thankfully, his bag was still there where he left it.

Cheetor ran the rest of the way to work. He was already five minutes late, and it was a ten minute jog to the Maximal Bakery. He just hoped Optimus would be in a forgiving mood. 

* * *

Having Dinobot around was... a mixed bag.

On the one hand, business was great. They'd made noticeably more money since Dinobot joined the team, and people were practically raving about the more complex pastries they'd been able to offer. That alone may have made Optimus's gamble worth it in Rhinox's eyes, but...

There were downsides as well. Interpersonal strife.

"Hey! I just mopped that floor," Rattrap complained, and Rhinox suppressed a sigh. Sometimes they were able to make it to mid-morning without an argument, but today, it seemed, was not one of those days.

_"Excuse_ me. I suppose you've never spilled anything in your life," Dinobot growled back. He was in the middle of making the filling for some tarts in the newly-designated pastry area, and had accidentally elbowed an open container of vanilla off the counter. Not much had spilled, he'd grabbed it before it could make too much of a mess, but it was enough for Rattrap to make a big deal over.

"Well, if you can't even keep your space clean, maybe you ain't that good of a baker," Rattrap said, one hand on his hip and the other on the handle of the mop he really had just finished using.

Dinobot whirled around to glare daggers at him. "Listen, vermin—"

"Stop," Rhinox interrupted. "Rattrap, if you're bored enough to start fights, there are plenty of things I can give you to do."

Rattrap slipped out of the kitchen, grumbling the entire way. Dinobot silently turned his back to his work, but Rhinox could see the tension in his shoulders. He didn't know what the environment at The Predacon was like, but nearly a month of constant clashing didn't make for a particularly healthy work life for either one of them. Rhinox just hoped they would find a way to move past it. 

And then there was the mail...

They worked in relative silence for a couple hours. Optimus arrived and got to work. When Dinobot stepped out for his break, he nearly collided with Cheetor, who was fifteen minutes late and panting.

"Sorry!" Cheetor apologized as he ducked under Dinobot's arm and through the door. Dinobot rolled his eyes as he left. 

"Where have you been?" Rhinox asked, leaning against the counter.

Cheetor flinched as he hung his bag up, which was very suspicious. "Uh... nowhere," Cheetor said. This got Optimus's attention as well. "You know, just. Running late."

"You're not usually late for work," Optimus said, turning to look at him. With two pairs of eyes on him, Cheetor started to break down.

"Okay, so... I stopped by The Predacon this morning," he admitted. Rhinox's eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. "I mean, I do that every day! Just to check things out from the outside, y'know? Nothing wrong with that."

"But...?" Rhinox prompted

"Well... this time I went inside," Cheetor admitted. "There wasn't anyone at the counter but the doors were unlocked, so I thought maybe I could get some information without anyone seeing me. I went behind the counter and looked at some papers, but Scorponok caught me before I could find anything useful."

"Cheetor," Optimus said, in a very convincing stern father voice for someone who didn't have children. "That's breaking and entering. It's illegal."

"I didn't break into anything! The door was unlocked," Cheetor protested. "Besides, they do illegal stuff to us all the time!"

"You let Scorponok see you, _and_ they probably got you on camera," Optimus said. "The Predacons don't get caught. They've never personally walked through our doors to cause trouble."

"Yet," Rhinox pointed out. "Let's not tempt fate."

"Not tempt Megatron is more like it," Optimus sighed. "Cheetor, do _not_ go back over there. The last thing I need is to have to call your parents and explain why you're spending the night in a county jail."

Cheetor didn't respond, just scowled as he grabbed an apron and headed up front to relieve Rattrap of working the registers. When Rattrap came back, he looked around like he was searching for something. 

"I heard fighting," he said, clearly interested.

"There hasn't been any fighting," Optimus said firmly. "I have to go check the PO box, I can't put it off anymore. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Good luck," Rhinox said sympathetically. 

Rattrap snorted. "Yeah, if we find out someone pipe bombed the post office we'll think fondly of you."

Optimus rolled his eyes as he took off and hung up his apron and grabbed his keys and wallet. "Thanks," he said flatly, and slipped out the back door.

As soon as he was gone, Rattrap rounded on Rhinox. "Okay, seriously, what was the fight about? The kid looks mad. That's _weird_, for Cheetor."

"Apparently he tried to go on a stealth fact-finding mission to The Predacon this morning, but Scorponok saw him," Rhinox said. 

Rattrap whistled. "Didn't think he had it in him," he said. "Well, good for him. God knows someone should be doin' _something._ If we just lay around letting them step on us they're never gonna stop."

"He could have gotten hurt or in trouble," Rhinox said sternly. "That's not the kind of decision he should be making without consulting someone."

"Why, so you and the boss could tell him to leave it alone? The way I see it, he was just taking initiative," Rattrap said.

Rhinox shot him a look. "He's going to get into trouble," he said. 

Rattrap shrugged. "Can't be any worse than what I got up to at his age."

Dinobot returned before Rhinox could answer that. Rattrap hissed and went back to the front. Rhinox could hear the muffled sound of him and Cheetor talking through the kitchen door, which didn't bode particularly well for the future.

Optimus walked through the back door with a box under his arm and his shirt and face covered in glitter. "Well, I changed the PO box again," he announced.

Rhinox sighed. "Anything interesting this time?" he asked, pausing his work to squint at Optimus's new look. He slipped a tray of flatbread into the oven and came to inspect the new package as Optimus set it on the far counter, far away from the food.

"Nothing but the glitter, but it was a lot of glitter," Optimus said. "This one is clean, though."

He opened it up to show off the new piping bags, tips, and cake wheels he'd ordered. "Here you go, Dinobot."

Dinobot had been watching him with a pointed frown, but as he came to inspect the contents of the box, he looked downright unhappy. They were exactly what he'd asked for—Optimus had pressed him for his preferred brands, since he'd had to leave most of his preferred equipment behind.

Finally, he looked up from the box to Optimus, covered in glitter. "This may not be worth it," he said, his voice quiet.

It wasn't hard to infer that he meant the entire situation, not the piping tips. The Predacon had stepped up its game since the competition. They weren't tampering with any Maximal packages—just overwhelming the legitimate mail with fakes that were at best annoying and at worst potentially harmful. Nothing had come of reporting it yet. 

"I think it is," Optimus said evenly. "This aside, business has been going really well."

"And when you end up in the hospital because you've gotten glitter in your eyes?" Dinobot demanded.

"You're assuming it would stop if you weren't here. I don't think it would make a difference whether you're here or not—they're going to target us either way. They've made that abundantly clear," Optimus said. "Besides, we all think it's worth having you here."

Dinobot gave him a hard look. "All of you?"

"Cheetor, Optimus and I do," Rhinox interjected. And Rattrap would do well to keep his mouth shut, since the better their sales were, the more likely it was they'd be able to get quarterly bonuses. 

"I can't make you stay, Dinobot. But I'm not going to let you pin all this on yourself. We all know what they're like. We all made them mad last month, and now they're trying to punish us for it," Optimus said. He angled himself over the nearest trash can and started shaking out his shirt, trying to get the glitter off of it. Instead, he created a ring of glitter around him, but a good bit was still clinging to his shirt. "I don't think this is going to work. Are you two okay if I go home and change?"

"Go right ahead," Rhinox said. He very much didn't want some unsuspecting person slicing into their loaf of bread and finding glitter inside it. "You should probably shower, too."

Optimus sighed. "Yeah," he agreed. "I'll be back. Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do," Rhinox said. 

Dinobot was silently contemplating the piping tips as if they held the answer to some question he couldn't quite figure out. 

"He's right, you know," Rhinox said. "None of this has been specifically directed at you."

"I suppose," he muttered, and took the box of supplies back to his workstation with him. 

These things took time. Rhinox had been in work environments before where he didn't feel particularly welcome, and it wasn't very much fun. But Optimus had been doing everything he could to make the transition easier, and Cheetor nearly hung on to Dinobot's every word when he was giving instructions. 

Dinobot would just have to get used to them. Or he wouldn't, and he would quit. Either way, Rhinox was just hoping for things to settle down a little.

* * *

Cheetor stewed.

He ran the whole thing over in his head a million times during his shift—his trip to The Predacon, and Optimus's reaction to it. It wasn't _fair_ that The Predacon got to mess with them constantly and always got away with it, and yet they couldn't do anything to retaliate. Cheetor didn't think he'd done anything wrong, and Rattrap didn't either. 

There had to be something he could do. Literally anything. At the very least, some way to watch them or listen in, like they'd done to the Maximal Bakery with their hidden cameras. At least then they'd have a chance at figuring out what Megatron was planning before it happened, and maybe they could take countermeasures. That didn't seem like a problem.

And if Optimus didn't agree... Well, Cheetor didn't need his approval. 

He started to plan. On his way home from work, he stopped at a couple of stores to pick up some supplies. By the time evening came, he had everything all mapped out in his head. He had an afternoon shift the next day, which gave him plenty of time to put the plan into motion. Optimus wouldn't know anything had happened until he started to benefit from Cheetor's actions. 

He started his morning routine the same way he always did. He got up at the same time, showered, and got dressed. He ate a granola bar and took his meds. Then, before there was even a hint of sun in the sky, he set out with a full backpack on his back.

Cheetor jogged most of the way to The Predacon. When he got there, he could see through the glass front door and the little window in the kitchen door that the kitchen lights were already on. That threw off his plan a little bit—he'd been hoping to arrive before Tarantulas did. What time did he start? Not even Optimus or Rhinox would have left their houses yet at this hour. 

The stumbling block wasn't going to stop him. He wasn't going to let that stop him. Cheetor took to the same alley he'd stowed his bag in the morning before and pulled out a pair of binoculars. Carefully, he examined everything he could see in the shopfront, up to and including the menu and the way the chairs were stacked. He focused on the little window, and waited for movement. Sure enough, only a minute or two passed before Tarantulas passed by. 

Cheetor waited a little longer, just to see if anyone else walked by. It wouldn't do to have Scorponok ruin his plans twice in a row. But if the table of schedules Cheetor had been compiling was correct, he shouldn't have anything to worry about. He didn't see anyone else through the window., which meant it was time to head to phase two.

Cheetor circled around to the back of the bakery, taking care to give it a wide berth in case of cameras. He emerged in another alley off to the side that still gave him a decent view of the heavy back door where employees entered and exited. Next to it was a hefty-looking keypad, which meant there was no way he was getting in there on his own. Cheetor had made a plan for this eventuality, but... it had hinged on him already being there when Tarantulas got in for the morning.

He waited, hidden as well as he could be behind a corner while still being able to peek at the back door. All he could do was hope that Tarantulas would have some reason to come outside again.

It felt like he waited forever. At first he tried to stay completely focused, gaze trained on the door with no deviations, but he really wasn't good at that. Things kept catching his eye, and then the involuntary leg jiggle started, and then it got worse, and it felt like Cheetor was going to start bouncing all over the place, so. He pulled out his phone and started to mess around aimlessly while still keeping his ears open. If it didn't work out today, he could always try again a different morning, but—

Just as the reluctant thought entered his head, the door opened, causing Cheetor to flinch so hard he nearly dropped his phone. He clasped a hand over his own mouth and froze, hoping Tarantulas didn't see him.

Tarantulas was holding a big black garbage bag that wasn't even close to being full. He walked it over to the dumpster anyway, glancing over his shoulder in different directions the entire time. Cheetor was lucky he was as far behind the corner as he was.

It was weird behavior, but Cheetor wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He quickly stowed his phone in his pocket and got into a crouch. He waited for Tarantulas to walk back to the door and punch his code in, then open it. The second he stepped over the threshold, Cheetor sprinted out of his hiding spot as quietly as he possibly could. Just before it slammed shut, he slipped a piece of cardstock folded over a few times into the gap. The door hit it, and closed most of the way, but didn't latch.

Cheetor's veins filled with adrenaline and excitement even as he dove back into his hiding spot. He waited a few seconds, but Tarantulas didn't come back to examine why the door hadn't closed. He'd done it! The rest of the mission should be a piece of cake!

He circled back around to the front of the building to enact phase three. Here, he didn't bother with hiding from the cameras—the name of the game was speed. He grabbed a wireless speaker out of his bag and turned it on, then stuck it to the wall over The Predacon's front door. The employee at the electronics store had assured him it was "small but powerful." It was going to have to be if it was going to accomplish its purpose. He'd played with it a little at home, but hadn't tried it at full volume for the sake of the couple he was renting his room from. 

Cheetor jogged back to the back door again, and crouched down next to it. He pulled out his phone, connected it to the speaker, and found the soundclip he wanted to use. 

Once he played it, everything was going to go very fast. Cheetor had never seen The Predacon's kitchen before. He had no idea what to expect, and he would need to be in and out in a matter of seconds.

Well. There was no use putting it off—the longer he waited, the more likely it was he'd be found out. Cheetor pressed the play button and put his ear next to the crack in the doorframe. 

He could hear the sound of shattering glass from the other side of the building, so it _had_ been loud. Was it loud enough to penetrate to the kitchen? Especially with the Kesha Cheetor could hear playing from inside. For a few long moments, it seemed his efforts hadn't been enough—but then, the music stopped. Cheetor's pulse sped up. He heard the sound of a door opening and closing. 

Cheetor sprang to his feet. Now was his chance. He opened the door and stuck his head inside. He looked around quickly, and once he'd ascertained that the coast was clear, he slipped inside.

He might only have seconds, he knew. His equipment was in hand, ready to go, and he looked around frantically, trying to decide where to hide a microphone that would get the best use. He could barely give a thought to looking at the kitchen and gleaning any sort of useful information from it—he needed hiding spots.

Instead, something else caught Cheetor's eye. On one of the walls, high up by the ceiling, there was a little shelf with a square glass case on it. Inside the case... 

There was a rubber duck. Just sitting there, overseeing The Predacon's kitchen. Cheetor stared at it. Something about it grabbed his whole attention—he _knew_ he needed to get a move on, but he just couldn't look away.

The sound of approaching footsteps finally broke him out of his trance. Cheetor panicked, and looked around frantically for anywhere he could hide. There was a closet to his right with the door ajar. Cheetor dove inside.

He didn't even get to shut the door behind him before he heard Tarantulas re-enter the room. This was bad. This was very, very bad. 

Cheetor carefully scooted back and crouched in the darkest corner of the closet, well out of the way of the crack in the doorway, and pulled out his phone again. He could play another sound, and hope that it would give him a few extra seconds to flee the bakery, but he doubted it would be as effective a second time. Right now, all he was looking for was a way out.

He hadn't even done what he'd come here to do. He hadn't accomplished anything, aside from getting a quick peek at The Predacon's kitchen. Frustrated, Cheetor stuck one of his wireless microphones to the underside of a shelf in the closet. Maybe he could place another one on the way out. He'd been hoping to leave one inside an office or something, but that didn't look like it was going to be happening.

Cheetor scrolled through his phone, looking for another soundclip to play. Before he'd chosen one, the back door opened and closed again, and he heard a second set of footsteps walk in.

_Shit_. Cheetor silently screamed as he listened to Scorponok turn Tarantulas's Kesha way down, and the two of them calmly insult the other. Now there were _two_ people he needed to distract if he was ever going to get out of here.

Okay. Okay, this was fine. Maybe they'd both go investigate. Or at the very least, maybe they'd both turn their backs. There was a straight line between Cheetor and the back door—he could see it through the crack in the closet doorway. He just had to get the Preds to _stop looking_.

He picked a noise at random, this one coming out as an explosion. It was definitely loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. 

"What was that?" Scorponok asked, sounding suspicious.

"I don't know," Tarantulas said dismissively.

"I'm going to check it out," Scorponok said.

Cheetor grit his teeth in frustration—they were both supposed to go! But he only heard the sound of one set of footsteps leave.

Okay, fine. One person to deal with was better than two. He kinda wished it had been Scorponok he'd been left with, but he would deal with—

All thought came to a crashing stop when the door to the closet swung open, and Cheetor, crouched on the floor of the closet, looked up and met Tarantulas's eye.

Tarantulas looked surprised, but only in the smallest way—his brow was raised, but as Cheetor watched him, a creepy grin slowly overtook his face. Cheetor should have left then, shoved past him and made a break for the door, but he didn't. He couldn't move.

The door to the kitchen opened again. "I didn't see anything," Scorponok reported.

Tarantulas angled the closet door most of the way closed again, so Scorponok couldn't see inside. "Strange," he said, standing in the doorway. "I guess we'll never know."

Scorponok didn't seem to have an answer to that, and Tarantulas slipped into the closet and shut the door behind him. He flipped the light switch, illuminating shelves full of baking supplies and boxes. He didn't say anything, just made direct eye contact with Cheetor and put a finger to his lips. Cheetor kept his mouth shut.

He watched with wide eyes as Tarantulas reached back, far into one of the shelves, behind boxes and in a dark corner. He pulled out a nondescript bottle that didn't look like it had a label. 

Cheetor didn't notice that Tarantulas held his breath when he uncapped it. He held it up to Cheetor like he was offering it to him for Cheetor to smell. And Cheetor didn't have anywhere to go to escape it...

He didn't remember what it smelled like. Just that he felt funny, and then the world went black around him.

* * *

Optimus was at the bank making a deposit when it all went down. 

It wasn't like Rattrap had been watching the clock. He'd been doing his job at the front counter, getting through the lunch crowd, and popped into the back to grab more bagels to refill the case. Before he could actually bring them back, Rhinox stopped him.

"You haven't heard from Cheetor, have you?"

Rattrap gave him a weird look. "No. Why?"

"Because he should have been here fifteen minutes ago," Rhinox said. 

Oh, huh. Would you look at that. "So we'll call him," Rattrap said, and pulled out his phone. He could tell Rhinox was worried, but he was probably just running late and it had slipped his mind to text one of them. He could be pretty forgetful sometimes. 

The phone kept ringing, and eventually hit voicemail. Rattrap ended the call before the prompt to leave a message. "Okay, that don't necessarily mean anything," he said.

"You know he was upset about the thing with the Predacons yesterday," Rhinox pointed out.

Rattrap knew. He'd vented to him about it plenty the day before. And Rattrap just may have implied he thought Cheetor was right, and that _someone_ should do _something_. "He's not stupid enough to get himself into serious trouble, right?" Rattrap asked, trying to reassure himself more than anything.

Rhinox gave him a look.

Shit.

"Yeah, okay," Rattrap huffed. The kid was young and impulsive, convinced of his own immortality. That was not the attitude to have when going up against the son of a gang leader. "So what are we supposed to do? We don't know where he is."

Rhinox thought for a moment, and the next was pulling out his phone. "I think I can find him," he said.

"You got a tracker on him?" Rattrap accused, trying to look at what was going on on his screen.

"No. He asked me to add him as a family member on my account so he can watch the movies I buy," Rhinox explained. "I think I can..." 

Rattrap watched him click around until he got to Find My iPhone, and a map popped up. It had two blips on it.

"You added him to your family but not me? I want free movies," Rattrap frowned, a little hurt. 

"You have Android," Rhinox pointed out as he zoomed in. One of the blips was clearly his own phone at the bakery. The other... was halfway across town.

"That ain't The Predacon, is it?"

"No," Rhinox frowned. There were business names around it, but Rattrap wasn't familiar with that part of town. They'd only been in Providence for a few months. The exact building Cheetor's blip was in wasn't labeled, which didn't seem _good_. 

"So that's where he is?"

"Where his phone is, anyway," Rhinox said. 

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Rattrap asked.

Rhinox looked at Rattrap until Rattrap had to divert his gaze. "Come on, I'm on shift," he complained. 

"I'll cover for you," Rhinox said. "Dinobot and I can handle things here until you're gone." Which would make Optimus not his problem, and Rattrap wasn't one to pass up being on the clock and not actually working. 

Rattrap groaned, long and dramatic, just for show. "Send me the address," he grumbled, even as he went to grab his wallet and keys. He'd need to figure out how to _get _there first, and then who knew how long it would take him to actually sniff Cheetor out?

"Thank you," Rhinox called after him just before the back door slammed shut. Rattrap rolled his eyes and pulled up the public transit app. The things he did for these people...

* * *

Cheetor came to slowly, and with a killer headache.

The first things he was aware of were distant voices talking and laughing pleasantly. He tried to focus on them, to make sense of the words they were saying, and finally came back to himself enough to slowly open his eyes and look around.

He found himself in a dimly lit room. Most of the light was coming from an out-of-place chandelier and a table to Cheetor's right covered in a long white tablecloth, on top of which sat several lit candles. There were a bunch of mismatched easy chairs arranged in a circle around the table, which, aside from one empty chair, each contained a person that Cheetor had never seen before. He was having a hard time figuring out how he'd gotten here with the fog in his brain.

Then Tarantulas walked into his line of sight, and Cheetor remembered.

He tried to stand, but he didn't get very far—it was then that Cheetor realized that he, too, was in a fairly comfortable easy chair, except that his hands were tied up behind the back of it, and when Cheetor tried to jerk them free, he felt unforgiving metal handcuffs press into his wrists. 

Panic started to set in. Cheetor didn't know where he was and he didn't know who these people were, but he knew this was _very bad_.

"And you know, normally, that would have ruined my whole day," a middle-aged suburban mom-type woman in the chair next to Cheetor was saying. "But the whole time I was completely calm. I just kept thinking about my inner spider. She wouldn't freak out, so why should I? If her web gets destroyed by the rain or something, she just builds it back up again. She really gave me the strength to get through it."

"That's wonderful," Tarantulas said serenely, which was _not_ a word Cheetor ever expected would apply to Tarantulas. 

As if Tarantulas had read his thoughts, he looked Cheetor's way. "Oh, you're awake," he said as he dropped into the one empty chair. "Everyone, say hello to Cheetor. It's his first session today."

"Hi Cheetor!" came a chorus of cheerful voices that just made Cheetor's head throb.

"Wh... where am I? What's going on?" Cheetor demanded, or tried to. His voice sounded wrong, and he realized that he was pretty thirsty.

"You're taking part in your first meeting of The Web," Tarantulas explained, a wicked smile on his face. "Please do try to keep interruptions to a minimum. You'll understand as long as you pay attention."

The suburban mom next to him leaned over her armrest. "Don't worry, you're in for a treat," she assured him. 

It was not reassuring at all. Cheetor was struggling to put the pieces together—how had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered was The Predacon's closet. How far away was that? How had Tarantulas moved him? None of these people _looked_ like Predacons...

"As I was saying. That was a wonderful story, Eileen," Tarantulas said. "It always surprises people, how many different areas of our lives benefit by nurturing our inner spiders. But really, it shouldn't be surprising at all—with eight legs, they're able to touch so many aspects of our lives and our bodies. When we take care of them, they take care of us, and we see those benefits everywhere."

Cheetor was pretty sure he was hallucinating or something. Spiders? _What?_

"Can we see them now?" asked a guy across the circle who looked like he was about Cheetor's age.

Tarantulas did his weird, wheezing laugh. “I suppose there's no reason to put it off," Tarantulas said. He stood and walked over to the wall to Cheetor's right, where there was another table set up. Tarantulas flipped on a single overhead light, and Cheetor was able to see it a little better—there were plastic containers of different sizes set up on it in a neat row. Tarantulas grabbed some of them and took their lids off. "Alright, everyone. Let's form a line."

The rest of the people sitting in the circle got up from their chairs and went to stand in a neat and orderly line by the table. Tarantulas gestured for a couple of them to come forward, and they did, gravitating to one or another of the plastic containers and sticking their hands inside.

Cheetor couldn't see very well what they were doing, since they were turned away, but he heard words being whispered—almost _cooed_. The woman who'd been sitting next to Cheetor turned to the side and held her hand up to her face. "Hey there," she spoke to whatever was inside it. "How are you doing? Aren't you just the cutest little thing?"

Were they... spiders? Were they holding and talking to spiders?

A feeling of fear dripped down Cheetor's back. It was one thing to _talk_ about the things, but holding them? Talking to them like they were kittens? That was a little bit much for Cheetor. The thought of willingly touching one of those things... he shivered. 

"Remember—these aren't your inner spider, but they're an external representation. They connect with the one inside you, and commune with it. The closer you get evolutionarily, the better that connection will be," Tarantulas said. 

As he spoke, Cheetor watched him pick up a pink plastic rectangle and fiddle with it. Upon closer examination, Cheetor realized it was one of those old password journals they used to show commercials for on TV when he was younger. Cheetor had always thought they looked so cool, but never was able to own one. He didn't think they still existed, but Tarantulas had one. He brought the microphone part to his face, mumbled into it, and opened it up.

Out of the journal he extracted a ring of keys. He used one of them on a little padlock on the biggest plastic container. Once it was open, he replaced the keys in the journal and opened the lid.

Cheetor’s eyes grew wide when he saw what Tarantulas had pulled out. He’d never seen a tarantula in person before. He _knew_ they were supposed to be big, but seeing this one crawl across someone’s hand just a few feet away was another experience altogether. It was _huge_, and the longer Cheetor looked at it, the greater the sense of horror and dread that washed over him. 

He was really starting to freak out.  He didn't know what was going on, where he was, or how long he'd been out, and now he was surrounded by people with spiders crawling all over them. He tugged on the handcuffs again, but they didn't budge—there was no way out of here without external help. Cheetor tried just closing his eyes and waiting for it to be over, but it was like he could _feel_ legs crawling over his skin. 

Cheetor did not like spiders.

He had to open his eyes again when he heard Tarantulas approach. "Let's see, what to choose for you..." he mused, looking Cheetor up and down. 

"I—I don't need one," Cheetor stammered. His eyes were glued to the tarantula he was holding, which was _even bigger_ up close.

Tarantulas grinned at him. "Oh, you can't be a part of The Web without a spider. It's the only way to link with your true self and reach enlightenment," he said. "I think... we'll try a lynx spider first.”

He went back to the table to replace his tarantula and grab another container. Cheetor pressed himself back into the chair as Tarantulas walked back over to him, but once again, there was nowhere for him to _go_—except this time, what he was offering was his hand with a _spider on it_. He cackled as he nudged the spider onto Cheetor's forehead. 

Cheetor froze. His entire mind was being occupied by fear and the thought that maybe if he kept still, it wouldn’t kill him with the deadly venom it probably had. 

The suburban mom was back, and plopped back into her seat. "Don't think about it too much," she instructed. "I used to be scared shitless by spiders, and now look at me! The Web has really changed my life. You just have to relax and embrace the process!"

Cheetor made a noise he could only describe as a muted, closed-mouth squeal. He thought he could feel it moving, or maybe he was just imagining things, but it was _there_ and Cheetor was freaking out about it. _Why_ was everyone okay with this? Did they not see that he was tied up?!

Tarantulas turned around to address the rest of the group.

"Alright, everyone," he said, sounding pleased as punch. “After you’re finished with your spider, let’s all get out our needles.“

Cheetor wanted desperately to pass out again, and stay that way until this whole thing was over.

* * *

Rattrap hit a little bit of a roadblock when he first arrived at the address Rhinox sent him—it was for an abandoned-looking, and locked, building.

There was no way. Right? Surely Cheetor hadn't found himself in there. The map must have been just slightly off. 

He visited every surrounding building. He talked to baristas, receptionists and shoe store employees. Nobody had seen Cheetor.

Rattrap groaned to himself as he looked the 3-story cement building over. He didn't _want_ to go inside. It didn't look like it would fall down on top of him, but from where he was standing, there didn't seem to be an easy way in. 

He circled it, looking for anything he might have missed. Maybe a broken window he could get through, or a grate that looked like it had been recently disturbed. In the end, the answer was much simpler—he made a complete loop and came back to the door just in time to see someone rushing through it.

Rattrap sprinted to the door and grabbed it before it could slam shut. He waited a few moments, until he heard the sound of jogging footsteps fading away, and then slipped through himself.

The first thing he did when the door shut behind him was make sure he could open it again, and he could. Rattrap had no interest in becoming a horror movie casualty. It was only then that he took a good look around. He'd found himself in a dusty lobby, dark and unlit. There were lights on to his left, though—illuminating an emergency stairwell, with light spilling out of the glass window on the door. Rattrap headed in that direction, careful not to make a sound. 

Once he was in the stairwell, he could hear voices echoing up and down it. They sounded jovial from a distance, but that didn't comfort Rattrap much. Whatever it was that had gotten Cheetor to miss coming to work, it couldn't have been _good_. 

It was hard to tell, but it seemed like the voices were coming from below, in the basement level, which was even worse. Rattrap sent Rhinox a quick text to update him on the situation, just in case he didn't make it back out, and then crept down the stairs. And the farther down he got, the louder the voices became. At the bottom, the stairwell door was already propped open. Rattrap very carefully poked his head past the door.

It was another dim room, this one spacious and cement, but not empty, and not uninhabited. In the very center of the room, there was a little display set out—chairs arranged in a circle over what looked like a big rug, a table in the middle covered in candles, and a chandelier hanging above. The whole thing looked very out of place, with the thick cement pillars scattered throughout the room, the bare walls and floor, and all the junk that was piled up against the walls. Rattrap couldn't make most of it out, but it looked mostly like boxes and barrels piled on top of each other haphazardly. 

There were people sitting in the chairs, but Rattrap couldn't make any of them out.

"You've basically missed the whole meeting, Jeremy!" someone was teasing.

"I know, sorry," Jeremy said. Rattrap guessed he was the one he'd followed down here, and the one that was now standing between two of the chairs. "Can I still see my spider?"

"Of course. I wouldn't keep that from you," came Tarantulas's voice. A shiver ran down Rattrap's spine. There was now no doubt in his mind—_whatever_ had happened to Cheetor, whether he was here or had just had his phone stolen or something, Tarantulas was the one to blame.

Rattrap slipped through the doorway and hid himself in the shadow of one of the cement pillars. He'd need to get closer if he was going to get any more information.

The group kept talking as Rattrap crept between shadows and pillars to gradually approach the circle of chairs, cheerful voices never faltering. Most of his focus was on staying out of sight, but he kept one ear on the conversation, hoping to hear Cheetor's voice. 

"What are you making, Teacher?" a woman asked.

"Oh, just another baby blanket. An extended family member of mine is expecting," Tarantulas said. "I wasn't planning on making anything for them, but the yarn was on sale. How could I resist?" He did that evil chuckle, like that made any sense. Rattrap couldn't stop himself from peeking at the circle from behind one of the closer pillars. Were they knitting...?

"I don't think I'll ever be able to make something like that," came a younger voice, but not Cheetor's. He sounded discouraged.

"You can't think of it that way," Tarantulas said. "It isn't about what you make—it's the act of manipulating the string itself that brings fulfillment to your inner spider. They don't all spin webs, you know. Don't look on the end product as good or bad. Each project, no matter how big or small, brings you closer to your center."

"But if you wanted to make a baby blanket, I can send you my favorite youtube channels," someone in the circle added. "I'm a visual learner. The books never worked for me."

A man cleared his throat. “Speaking of which… I have something to confess,” he said, sounding hesitant. “The thing with the straws…”

“Yes?” Tarantulas asked.

“It’s not that I’m not on board, because I am. But earlier this week I just… forgot about it,” he admitted. “I’d been doing really well at drinking everything with a straw, but someone offered me a can of Pepsi and I just drank it. I didn’t even realize what I’d done until that night.”

There were mutters of sympathy and understanding from around the circle.

“That’s unfortunate, but I’m sure you won’t make this mistake again,” Tarantulas said. “I find it helps if you think of it less as something you _have_ to do, and more as something you _get_ to do. Drinking all beverages with a straw draws us closer to the experiences of spiders. Every time we drink something, it gives us an opportunity to deepen that connection, and bring out our inner spiders in our daily lives.”

Rattrap wasn't sure he wanted to know what was going on here anymore.

That thought was gone in the next instant, because he finally spotted Cheetor. The kid was sitting in one of the chairs in the circle, his eyes open and head leaning to the side, and he looked unnaturally still. For a second, he was filled with a sense of dread. He didn't think he'd ever seen Cheetor so still before—had Tarantulas killed him?

But then he blinked, and Rattrap pretended he'd never been worried. 

Sometime during the few seconds he'd been zoned out, Tarantulas stood and said something about packing up, and the people in the circle started to put their knitting projects away. Rattrap made himself as small as possible behind the pillar as people started to make their way out of the room and back up the stairs. 

"It was nice to meet you, Cheetor! You should come next week, we can teach you how to knit," a woman called behind her. If she'd looked in Rattrap's direction, everything would have been over. But for once, luck was on Rattrap's side. They all filtered out, and no one said a word. That just left Cheetor and Tarantulas.

"That wasn't so bad, was it? Have you made any inner connections?" Tarantulas asked. Rattrap could _hear_ his creepy grin. In response, Cheetor just grunted. "I understand. The first session is always a lot to take in, but there's no rush. I'll wait here with you for as long as you need."

He devolved into a cackle, and Rattrap heard the sound of items being shifted around. He risked taking another look, and was relieved to find Tarantulas had his back turned. He leaned out farther and finally caught Cheetor's eye. Rattrap motioned to him and the door, and Cheetor fruitlessly pulled at his own arms, which Rattrap realized were stretched behind the chair. So he was tied up. 

Rattrap ducked behind the pillar again just in time to avoid Tarantulas walking to the far wall. He started stacking some little plastic containers on a table there and gently placing them in an open suitcase. Rattrap took the opportunity to sprint to the other side of the room, this time hiding himself behind Cheetor's chair.

"You okay, kid?" he whispered. Sure enough, Cheetor's hands were cuffed. These were the real deal, too. Rattrap _could_ pick it, but he didn't have his materials with him. 

"Can't move," Cheetor whispered back through his teeth, sounding like he was barely moving his mouth.

"What's wrong with you?" Rattrap asked. "Did he drug you?"

"Spider," Cheetor muttered.

Rattrap poked his head around the chair to get a better look at Cheetor. He didn't _look_ drugged—he was holding his head up, his eyes weren't lolling back. His jaw was shut tight. "What?" 

"He put a spider on me," Cheetor whispered furtively.

Rattrap snorted. "That's the big problem? A spider?"

"This thing could kill me," Cheetor protested.

"Okay, whatever. We can deal with that later," Rattrap said, rolling his eyes. "Where's the key?"

"There's some keys in the password journal on the table," Cheetor said, just barely nodding in the direction of the table that was currently still covered in burning candles. 

“Cool. Just hang tight for a sec," Rattrap said.

Then, there were arms around him, pinning his own to his body. Instinctively, Rattrap flailed out, kicking and trying to break the hold, but he was unsuccessful.

"I see we have another interested convert," Tarantulas said, his slimy voice right by Rattrap's ear. "Unfortunately for you, these meetings are invitation-only."

Rattrap threw his head back and nailed Tarantulas right in the nose with his skull. That was finally enough to break his hold, and Rattrap leapt out of his grip. He heard Tarantulas fall to the ground and didn't turn to see what had happened to him—he ran the few steps to the table and grabbed the only item left on it, a pink plastic thing that didn't look much like a journal, but was sort of almost shaped like it could be one.

He held it up. "This?" he asked Cheetor.

"Yeah! Haven't you ever seen the commercials?"

Rattrap was about to retort, but he was tackled to the ground instead. He had the wind knocked out of him, and as he gasped for air, Tarantulas was able to pin him to the floor. He had another pair of handcuffs on him. Rattrap knew if he got those on him, it would all be over. Rattrap thrashed, desperately trying to get himself free.

They rolled around a few times, each trying to get the upper hand. In the ensuing scuffle, one of them bumped the table. Rattrap barely noticed—he had had bigger things to worry about just then.

"Rattrap!" Cheetor called, sounding a little panicked. Rattrap looked up for just a moment and realized the tablecloth was on fire.

Tarantulas noticed it, too. "No!" he shouted. He jumped up, reaching out as if to do something to stop it, but it was a lost cause—the entire table was on fire, and the flames had crawled down the tablecloth and started to lick at the carpet. 

He rounded on Rattrap, who had already scrambled well out of the way of the flames. "Now look what you've done! You ruined everything!" he shouted, throwing his hands into the air.

"How is this my fault? You kidnapped somebody!" Rattrap yelled back. 

Tarantulas didn't dignify that with an answer. He ran over to the second table and grabbed the suitcase, then ran back to the doorway to the stairwell. "Good luck," he threw over his shoulder before he disappeared.

"Asshole," Rattrap muttered as he got to his feet.

"Rattrap!" Cheetor called, reminding him about the very real danger the two of them were now in. The password journal was on the floor nearly consumed with flames, which were very quickly reaching Cheetor's chair. Rattrap scrunched up his face and stuck his foot in the fire, quickly kicking the hunk of plastic out of danger and onto the cool cement floor. Then he ran behind Cheetor's chair and tipped it backward, dragging it on two feet off the carpet.

"Thanks," Cheetor sighed in relief. 

"Yeah. We gotta go. What's the password?" Rattrap asked, gingerly picking the thing up and tossing it from one hand to the other until it cooled down. They were safe for the moment, but the fire had reached a couple of the chairs and was starting to consume them. 

“I don’t know! But it won't work if you say it, it has to be his voice," Cheetor said. He was tugging at the cuffs more insistently, and was looking around the room wildly, trying to figure out where the fire might spread to. He seemed to have forgotten all about the spider that had been keeping him relatively immobile, but they did have much bigger problems currently. 

Okay, fine. It was just a hunk of plastic. Rattrap raised it above his head and smashed it on the ground. The plastic cracked, and there was just enough give for him to break it open. 

Sure enough, there was a ring of keys inside. Part of Rattrap really had hoped there would be a diary, but no such luck—the keys would have to do. He rushed them to the handcuffs and flipped through each one that looked like it might fit, trying them until finally,_ finally, _he heard a little _click_, and one of the cuffs popped open. 

"Alright, let's get out of here," Rattrap said, gesturing to the stairwell. "We can make an anonymous tip to the fire department or somethin' after we're—_what?" _Despite being freed, Cheetor hadn't moved a muscle, and was instead staring straight ahead with his eyes wide. Rattrap thought maybe he'd remembered the spider, but then he pointed.

Rattrap turned around and looked. Because of the fire now blazing in the middle of the room, it was a lot brighter, so he could see the junk Tarantulas was keeping against the wall more clearly. Specifically, Cheetor was pointing at some big barrels, and he could now see the OSHA symbol painted on it, proclaiming the contents to be flammable. And it just so happened the flames were creeping closer and closer to them.

Rattrap really would like to know what the _fuck_ Tarantulas was doing with whatever was in those things, but there was very literally no time for that.

"You wanna get blown up? Let's _go!"_ Rattrap shouted, yanking Cheetor out of his seat by the arm. That was enough to get him moving—the two of them made a mad dash for the stairs. They took them two and three at a time, tearing through the first floor's abandoned lobby and bursting through the door Rattrap entered from. Neither of them stopped there. Cheetor followed Rattrap across the street, and they didn't stop running until they were at the end of the block.

There was a huge _boom_ sound. Rattrap skidded to a stop and turned, narrowly avoiding being bowled over by Cheetor, so he could see what happened.

At first, it seemed like nothing. The building looked unchanged, the only difference being passersby who had stopped and were looking around for the source of the noise. Then, there was another, slower and louder, like grinding or maybe crumbling—it grew and grew, and then Rattrap realized the building had started to sag in the middle.

It was like watching a trainwreck. Pedestrians realized what was happening and started to run away. Cars were stopped in the middle of the street, trying to back up and out of the way. The whole thing seemed to go in slow motion as the building collapsed in on itself, throwing up a huge cloud of dust and spitting rubble into the street. The noise was tremendous. 

Rattrap missed the very last part because of the dust. But after what felt like an eternity the noise came to a stop, and everything was deathly still. Rattrap peeked through his fingers to look at the ruins of the abandoned building.

"Did that seriously just happen?" Cheetor asked, sounding breathless.

Rattrap let his arms drop to his sides. "Yeah," he said, just as full of disbelief. Rhinox was not gonna believe this one. “Well, this is what happens when you go off and try to take on the Preds all by yourself."

Cheetor at least had the sense to look apologetic. "I was just trying to help..." he mumbled. 

"Yeah, big help you are, getting kidnapped by a nutjob and almost getting yourself blown to bits! You're lucky I even came to get your sorry ass. I shoulda just let you deal with the consequences of your own actions," Rattrap huffed. 

"Yeah... Thanks for saving my life," Cheetor said.

Rattrap groaned. The kid was too sincere. It was disgusting. "Let's just get out of here. I don't wanna be anywhere near here when the cops show up, and the boss is gonna be seriously pissed at the both of us."

Cheetor nodded, and took a few steps, then froze. "Wait! The spider!" he exclaimed, carefully but frantically feeling all over his face and head and looking at his clothes. "Is it still on me?"

"Oh, come on. It probably fell off when... Okay, hold that thought," Rattrap said. He reached up and used the keys he'd kept clutched in his hand to brush the little spider off Cheetor's shoulder. As soon as it hit the sidewalk, Cheetor jumped away like it was going to shoot venom at him or something.

"Thanks," he said, relieved. 

"You just really want to owe me today," Rattrap said, and raised his foot.

"Wait! Don't step on it!" Cheetor protested.

"Seriously?" Rattrap demanded. "You were acting like that thing was gonna kill you and now you don't want it to get stepped on?"

"It could have! But..." He trailed off, looking conflicted. "I don't know... It's not the spider's fault. Maybe we should take it to some bushes or something..."

Rattrap stared at Cheetor, eyes narrowed. "Tarantulas really did get inside your head, huh? What, are you gonna pick it up and carry it again until you find a bush?"

Cheetor shook his head, clearly unsettled by the idea. "No, just... hang on, make sure it doesn't go anywhere," he said, and then darted away and into the coffee shop a few feet away. So Rattrap stood there, making sure a _spider_ on a _sidewalk_ didn't leave his line of sight while a big crowd gathered around a building that had collapsed just minutes ago.

Cheetor returned momentarily with a clear plastic cup and a napkin. He carefully scooted the spider into the cup and then covered the top with the napkin. "Okay, we're good."

Rattrap folded his arms over his chest. He heard police sirens off in the distance. "You sure?" he asked. "Because I wouldn't want anything to happen to the poor defenseless spider. You wanna stick around longer, see if you can find something for it to eat? Find a juicy fly or somethin'?"

"No, let's just go," Cheetor said, rolling his eyes like that suggestion was somehow more out there than him asking Rattrap to babysit a spider. _Kids these days._

They walked a ways away from the fallen building before they found a bus stop that would take them back to the bakery. While they waited for the bus, Rattrap unlocked the other handcuff from Cheetor's wrist and pocketed the cuffs and the ring of keys. There was no telling what the rest of them did, but it seemed like a good idea to keep them on hand, just in case.

Just as Rattrap predicted, they got chewed out by Optimus as soon as they got back to the bakery, but Rhinox got him to soften the blow. Cheetor didn't mention the ordeal they'd been through, and neither did Rattrap. It would have just made things worse. Going through all that and having to finish out his shift was already pretty bad.

But Rhinox smiled at Rattrap once Optimus's back was turned. Which absolutely did _not_ make up for Rattrap almost getting blown up to save his dumb coworker. But it also didn't hurt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (lynx spiders cannot, in fact, kill you)
> 
> Share on [tumblr](https://yeastwars.tumblr.com/post/618602208756482048/chapters-536-fandom-transformers-all-media) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/miniconsuffrage/status/1262947538446974980?s=20)!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terrorsaur gives himself a promotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you write three drafts of a chapter and it takes four months and the total comes out to just under 20k words. Why? You got me, dudes. I hope you guys like long fics...........
> 
> This one is a combo of two episodes, if that helps at all. Blackarachnia should be in it, but she isn't, so we'll do that next time. Something to look forward to!!! And hopefully it won't take another four months... (Although NaNoWriMo is coming soon, so. No updates during November, I can almost guarantee.)
> 
> Warning: Scorponok thinks for a moment that he's been shot with a real gun. It is not a real gun.

Megatron had been in a perpetually bad mood for weeks.

_ The traitor _ had left them without a pastry chef, and business was suffering because of it. Megatron couldn’t even think about him without anger bubbling up inside him. It was one thing to quit, but another thing entirely to _ join their enemies— _

The point was, he was gone. Terrorsaur had taken over the job, having occasionally filled in for Dinobot over the years. He just wasn’t very good at it. Terrorsaur was passable, but nowhere near the level The Predacon’s customers had come to expect.

Most of Megatron’s employees were incompetent, really. He didn’t know why he put up with them. It almost felt like it would be easier to be rid of the lot of them, and start from scratch.

Megatron’s phone rang just as he was sitting down to eat breakfast, only increasing his early-morning irritation. It was probably Scorponok calling to complain about one of the others shirking their duties. Again. Megatron had half an hour before he was supposed to be at work, and he couldn’t even eat breakfast in peace without being interrupted. It was ludicrous.

He glanced at the screen, fully intending to ignore it, but the name displayed was not what he expected. Not Scorponok, or Tarantulas, or Terrorsaur, or even him coming to his senses and begging to get back together—

_ Father _

Megatron grimaced. He would prefer not to do this today. He would prefer to eat his breakfast in peace and then go to work, where he would have an excuse for not answering the phone. But he’d already missed two calls from his father this month. If he missed one more, there would be consequences.

He took a deep breath, composed himself, and answered the phone.

“Hello, father,” he said.

_ “How kind of you to answer,” _ his father said, bypassing any sort of normal greeting. _ “I wouldn’t think a phone call or two a month would be too hard to fit into your busy schedule.” _

Megatron actively tried not to huff. “I’m in the middle of starting a new business. I’ve had a lot on my plate, _ yes _.”

_ “I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you tell me about it?” _his father suggested, gently but firmly.

“It’s nothing you would be interested in,” Megatron said curtly.

His father sighed. _ “What’s wrong,” _ he asked flatly.

“Nothing is _ wrong _,” Megatron said. He’d been dreading this. “Just… Dinobot quit last month.”

_ “Ah.” _

With that, it all came spilling out at once. “And went to work for the _ Maximals _ ! He quits without even putting in a two weeks notice and moves out in the same day, leaving me without a pastry chef, and then goes to join our _ mortal enemies! _ ” he ranted. “Business was doing fine, before then, _ yes! _ Better than that, even! Now I’ve had to promote _ Terrorsaur _ , who barely knows how to hold a piping bag and is almost as treacherous as Dinobot is, _ and _ we’re short staffed!”

_ “I see,” _ his father said gravely. _ “That sounds very stressful. I’m sorry to hear about Dinobot.” _

Megatron huffed. Of course he was—his father had always liked Dinobot. But Megatron was slightly placated by the acknowledgement of his struggles. “Yes. It has been,” Megatron agreed.

_ “Perhaps you should take a break,” _ his father suggested. _ “It’s been a while since you’ve been back to visit.” _

Megatron made a face, safe from his father’s eyes. It hadn’t been ‘a while’. It had, at most, been a few months since he’d seen his family last. “I couldn’t possibly. There’s far too much going on here. I need to put out an employment ad and do interviews, and the place would probably burn down without me.”

His father paused. _ “Allow me to rephrase,” _ he said. _ “I have a job for you.” _

Megatron groaned. “Surely you have someone else available. Where are all your minions just waiting around for you to give them an order?” he sneered.

_ “Of course. This job is just so close to you, you see. I’ll have to have Tarn stop in to check on you on his way there,” _ his father said.

“No,” Megatron said immediately. That was, quite literally, the last thing he wanted. _ “Fine. _ What is it you want?”

_ “I just need a package picked up from Boston and delivered here,” _ his father said. _ “You’re welcome to stay the night and leave the next morning. But since you’re coming down here anyway, you may as well stay for a couple of days. I’m sure it would do you good. Give you the space to clear your head.” _

That was probably the farthest thing from what it would _ actually _ accomplish, but there were some things that weren’t worth fighting against. Those that were, Megatron was more than happy to fight. But when it came to visiting family… even if he said he would only be staying the night, he would end up there for a few days at least. If his father didn’t try to keep him, then Soundwave would.

“Fine,” Megatron sighed. “What is this package you need delivered?”

_ “Oh, it’s nothing for you to worry about,” _ his father said dismissively. _ “It isn’t very big. I’ll send along the information. Can we expect to see you for dinner tomorrow?” _

Right. Wonderful. He’d just leave town and his business last-minute to retrieve who-knew-what. “I suppose,” he relented.

_ “Good,” _ his father said. _ “Let us know when you leave. Oh, and—son?” _

“Yes?”

_ “Don’t ignore my calls again.” _

* * *

Some people lived to decorate cakes. Terrorsaur was not one of those people.

Okay, so it wasn’t _ just _ the cakes. Or the cookies, or the pie crusts, or the danishes. Terrorsaur had not been hired as a pastry chef and had never wanted to be one, so the fact that this had suddenly become the entirety of his job was bad enough. But it wasn’t that alone—it was the fact that they were so short-staffed that Terrorsaur was working nearly every day, which meant he was getting great overtime, but all he really wanted to do was have a morning where he could sleep in.

He kind of hated his job, currently.

Along his route to get to work, there was a little 24/7 convenience store he stopped in every morning for his second dose of caffeine. The first, he made at home with an electric kettle and coffee powder, and that alone wasn’t cutting it lately. So it became routine, to pop in and grab a cup of shitty gas station coffee to sip on as he walked the rest of the way to the bakery. The place quickly became absolutely vital to his sanity.

Usually, on a Monday morning at 4AM and still half asleep, Terrorsaur made a beeline for the coffee machine and the rest of the store may as well have not existed for all the attention he paid to it. On this particular Monday morning, a display just inside the doors was colorful and eye-catching enough to stop him dead in his tracks.

A tower of Monster Energy drinks, a rainbow assortment of colors and flavors arranged in a spiral shape nearly as tall as Terrorsaur was, stood proudly at the end of a row of shelves. The colorful cans glinted brightly in the light of the florescent bulbs above, standing out even more starkly when contrasted with the darkness outside. Terrorsaur couldn’t take his eyes off it. His gaze drifted down over it, finally resting on the large sign at the base: _ 50% OFF. _

…huh. That _ was _ a pretty sweet deal. Terrorsaur hadn’t really had an energy drink since college, and the _ incident _ that put him in the hospital for three days before he’d dropped out. Those two events were unrelated, but still. He’d gone to coffee after that, but…

It was a really good deal. And Terrorsaur really needed the caffeine. He could practically taste it already, even after all those years.

Okay, that was enough half-conscious salivating in the convenience store at 4AM. Terrorsaur grabbed two cans, one classic black and green and one red and white, because you had to buy two to get the discount, and headed to the counter. The clerk was very nearly always the same guy, and he and Terrorsaur had a good thing going where the guy rung him up and took his money and didn’t speak to him at 4AM. If he noticed Terrorsaur’s break in routine, he didn’t notice it. Terrorsaur paid for his purchase and was back out on the sidewalk in seconds.

He popped the top of one of the cans and threw it back. Realistically, he knew it couldn’t go into effect _ that _ fast, but Terrorsaur could have sworn he was already starting to feel the pleasant buzz of energy in the base of his skull. Good decision. Good job, Terrorsaur.

The feeling only grew as he arrived at the bakery and got to work. Tarantulas was already there, like he was every morning. Terrorsaur wasn’t sure why he needed to get to work so early in the morning, but he also didn’t really care what Tarantulas did, right now or just in general. He got right to work getting the day’s different varieties of cake batter mixed up and ready to go in the oven. While that was baking, he grabbed some prepped dough and butter from the fridge and got started with laminating.

The whole time, he nursed the can of Monster. He could feel himself moving faster, the usual exhaustion nowhere to be found, and it was pretty great. Even being at work, using his newfound productivity on making cupcakes when he’d much rather be home playing video games or something, there was a little bit of euphoria that came with doing something well. Even when he brought the trays upon trays of cupcakes out of the blast freezer and started piping, he found he didn’t totally hate the experience like usual. Was this what other people felt like at work?

Around him, the morning wasn’t going quite so smoothly. Tarantulas was behind schedule for whatever reason, and since Scorponok was on the afternoon shift and Megatron hadn’t bothered to show up yet, that just left Waspinator to help.

“This is as simple as it could possibly be,” Terrorsaur heard Tarantulas instruct from the other side of the room. He and Waspinator were standing by the biggest of their industrial mixers, and Waspinator was staring into it, a mesmerized and yet worried look on his face. He always looked a little bit worried. “You just have to count the scoops. Do you think you can do that?”

Waspinator nodded hesitantly, and took the scoop from Tarantulas when offered. This was a bad idea, Terrorsaur knew, but it was 100% not his problem.

By the time Megatron finally bothered to show up a couple hours later, the mixer was no longer functioning. Tarantulas got even more behind, since he had to stop what he was supposed to be doing to tinker with the thing.

“What is going on here?” Megatron demanded once he got inside and got a good look at the place.

Tarantulas sighed, pausing the work of his wrench. He had splashes of flour all over his shirt and pants, and some in his hair. “Waspinator happened,” he said.

“Waspinator shouldn’t have been anywhere near the mixer. He isn’t a baker,” Megatron said.

“Oh, I’m well aware,” Tarantulas said, rolling his eyes.

Not Terrorsar’s problem! Megatron didn’t even bother finding something to yell at him for. Terrorsaur’s day was shaping up to be a pretty good one.

Having Megatron around helped, but they were still pretty behind. They’d been in Providence long enough to know how much of everything needed to be made to make it to closing time without running out while also not having too many leftovers. It looked like when Scorponok closed that night, the shelves would be pretty sparse. There would be plenty of cupcakes, though—Terrorsaur was on a roll.

Even though they were behind schedule, as soon as Scorponok arrived, Megatron called everyone to the kitchen, leaving the front counter unattended. It was… unusual. Normally when Megatron had something to say, he just texted them. This was apparently important enough that he wanted them all to be present.

Possibilities flashed through Terrorsaur’s mind. The bakery was closing down and they were all going to lose their jobs. Megatron was dying. Megatron and Dinobot were getting back together (again). _ Ugh _.

“I’m going to be away for a few days,” Megatron announced, and Terrorsaur instantly felt a little bit disappointed. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow to spend some time in Philadelphia. I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back, but it won’t be later than this weekend.”

Terrorsaur perked up just a little, once Megatron’s words sunk in. He hardly ever left them unattended for more than a day or two at a time.

“Scorponok is in charge while I’m gone,” Megatron continued. “Nothing changes. I’m sure the four of you are capable of keeping the place running without me for a little while. I don’t expect there to be any problems.”

You could just _ see _ the pride in Scorponok’s face at being left to run the bakery on his own for a couple days. It would honestly be sad if it wasn’t so irritating.

“We won’t let you down, Megatron,” Scorponok said, going so far as to salute. Terrorsaur snorted, which got him a glare from Scorponok, but he could just suck it.

Tarantulas cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to question your judgment,” he said, clearly doing just that, “but is it really the best idea to leave now, when we’re already short staffed?”

“It’s only for a few days,” Megatron said, his arms folded over his broad chest, signaling he would not budge on this. “We have job listings out. I expect to begin interviews and have someone hired no later than next week. _ Yes _, I know it will be a bit of a strain, but most of you are perfectly capable of handling a few days on your own.”

Waspinator hunched over sadly. Terrorsaur only barely tried to stifle a little snicker.

“Right,” Tarantulas said, clearly not buying it. “Well, as it happens, I actually know someone currently looking for a job who I’m sure would be a reasonable addition to the team.”

“Send me their information. I’ll look at it when I get back,” Megatron said dismissively. “Now, everyone get back to work. I want us back on track by the end of the day.”

Getting caught up meant Terrorsaur had to stay an extra hour and a half to help. Tarantulas snuck out as soon as the mixer was back in working order, the asshole. And Megatron didn’t even say anything about it. He was always getting away with stuff, and Terrorsaur hadn’t yet figured out if it was because he and Megatron had some sort of understanding, or if Megatron just didn’t notice. It wasn’t like he was putting Tarantulas in charge of anything like he was Scorponok.

Megatron had called Scorponok into his office before he left, and he shut the door behind him. With Tarantulas gone and Waspinator at the front counter, there was no one to see him—Terrorsaur dropped his bench scraper and hurried over to the door to press his ear against it.

_ “…need to make sure you keep an eye on the job listing we have up,” _ Megatron was saying. Giving Scorponok some last-minute instructions before he disappeared hours before the end of his shift, it sounded like. _ “I don’t need to tell you that we won’t be able to expand our operations until we get some more help. I will not stand to have us fall behind the Maximals.” _

_ “Of course,” _ Scorponok said.

_ “You won’t have to do anything, really. Just set up an interview for next week if anyone that seems promising applies,” _ Megatron said. _ “There should be a flour delivery on Wednesday, just leave the invoice on my desk. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you about payroll.” _

_ “I’ll make sure everything goes smoothly. You don’t have to worry about a thing,” _ Scorponok said. _ “If you don’t mind me asking… why are you leaving?” _

Terrorsaur could hear the grimace in Megatron’s voice. “_ Family matters,” _ he said, quickly followed by the sound of jingling keys. _ “Take these. I have to go pack. I have full confidence in you, so I don’t expect any… interruptions.” _

_ “Of course, Megatron,” _ Scorponok vowed. Terrorsaur grinned. Was that a hint of nervousness in his voice? _ “Have a good vacation.” _

_ “We’ll see,” _ Megatron grumbled.

Terrorsaur sprinted back to his spot on the other side of the kitchen just in time to make it look like he’d been working the entire time, so when Megatron made his way to the door, he barely spared Terrorsaur a glance.

He stopped at the last second, pausing halfway out the door, to fix Terrorsaur with a hard look.

“What?” Terrorsaur asked innocently.

“Don’t cause any problems,” Megatron told him. “You’ll regret it.”

Terrorsaur scoffed. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said unenthusiastically. He was practically begging for Terrorsaur to do something.

Scorponok was insufferable on a normal day, but for the rest of Terrorsaur’s shift, he was on another level. Megatron hadn’t even left the state yet, and Scorponok was walking around with his chest puffed up like he owned the place. Terrorsaur didn’t especially like being told what to do anyway, but now it was especially pissing him off. He didn’t think he could make it through a week of this.

He downed the last of his can of Monster and stewed as he shaped a tray of rolls to go into the oven. Megatron ever put Terrorsaur in charge of anything. He was perfectly competent, way less annoying than Scorponok was, and now he was basically doing the job of two people. Or one and a half, at the very least. In fact, Terrorsaur could probably run things better than Scorponok and Megatron combined. He’d never say as much, but, you know. There was a reason Dinobot had left.

It got Terrorsaur to thinking. He’d been working at The Predacon for a while now. He’d seen how things were run, and while there was a lot about it he didn’t like, this place was an esteemed bakery. Maybe Dinobot could have made a decent boss, but he was gone now. Scorponok was absolutely out of the question.

If Megatron was leaving… Well, that presented an opportunity, didn’t it?

The thought distracted Terrorsaur from his annoyance at having to stay late. He turned it over in his head every which way, considering the risks and rewards.

Megatron was gone, which meant Terrorsaur would be up against Scorponok. He could take Scorponok down easily, but to keep him away would require a group effort. Waspinator, Terrorsaur wasn’t worried about. He could be bullied into just about anything.

Tarantulas, on the other hand, was a wildcard. There was no way to do it without him, and there was really only one way to find out whether he would be up for it. Once he’d finally gotten home for the day, Terrorsaur pulled out his phone and texted him.

**Terrorsaur:** taking orders from scorponok all week is gonna SUCK

**Tarantulas:** I find tuning him out works wonders.

**Terrorsaur:** his voice is just so annoying tho

**Terrorsaur:** what if we didn’t have to tune him out

**Tarantulas:** Are you suggesting maiming him out so he doesn’t have the ability to speak?

**Terrorsaur:** no dude wtf

**Tarantulas:** Good, that seemed a little harsh.

**Terrorsaur:** i just think there are ways we can get rid of him that won’t get us immediately arrested

**Tarantulas:** You wouldn’t be arrested immediately if you did it correctly.

**Terrorsaur:** you are just so weird. no. i’m asking you if you want to help me take over the bakery

There was a pause of several minutes before Tarantulas replied, and Terrorsaur started to sweat. Tarantulas could so easily show these messages to Megatron, and that would be the end of it. Not to mention the end of Terrorsaur’s job. Possibly his career. He wouldn’t feel too confident about his life without moving a couple states away, either.

Finally, the little typing bubble popped up, and stayed up for what felt like an eternity.

**Tarantulas:** Sure.

Terrorsaur breathed a sigh of relief. The feeling quickly bubbled into one of excitement. This was happening, and Terrorsaur had it in the bag.

The second can of Monster sat on the table across the room. It caught Terrorsaur’s eye, and he considered it carefully. It was 6:30PM, not the _ best _ time for caffeine if he wanted a good night’s sleep. But Terrorsaur didn’t have any time to waste, and there was a lot that needed to get done tonight. He could feel his brain itching for it.

What the hell. Terrorsaur grabbed the can, popped the top, and took a big swig as he sat down with his laptop to look up locksmiths in town.

* * *

Tuesday was everything Scorponok could have asked for.

He’d been a little nervous, when Megatron announced he’d be managing things on his own for the week. Justifiably so—they were in the middle of a serious feud business feud and short-staffed, and things around The Predacon could go wrong at a moment’s notice even when Megatron was around. Waspinator breaking the industrial mixer the previous day was a perfect example. Scorponok had been braced for things to go wrong from the moment he woke up Tuesday morning with the knowledge that he was on his own.

Instead, everything went perfectly. Everyone showed up for work on time. Everyone filled their daily quota. Nothing broke, there were no catastrophes, and sales were pretty good. When Scorponok locked up for the night, the register was on and the place was spotless. He left with his head held high.

It seemed perfectly fair to send Megatron an update text. Partially in celebration, and partially to reassure him in case he was worried. Not that he’d asked Scorponok for an update, but still. Scorponok wanted him to see that he’d made the right choice. That he had nothing to worry about, putting Scorponok in charge—maybe even that it was a good thing Dinobot was gone, because now he wasn’t being blinded to the fact that Scorponok was clearly a superior choice to take on a leadership role in the bakery.

**Scorponok:** Everything went smoothly today, sir. Hope your trip is going well.

He only remembered that Megatron had asked not to be disturbed as he was trying to fall asleep. Megatron never answered, but that was fine. He’d just have to see with his own eyes once he got back.

Scorponok woke up relatively well-rested and in a good mood the next morning. He went through his morning routine at a leisurely pace, showering, making his morning coffee, making a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and then getting ready to head to work. He was a naturally early riser, but with how short-handed they were, he’d been closing for the last few months, and his body had started to adjust to the new sleep schedule. He would have preferred to work the early shift sometimes, but Tarantulas had first dibs. For some reason.

His good mood lasted the whole way to work. The weather was good, he only hit a couple of stoplights, and the radio played some of his favorite songs. The day seemed to be made for him.

The fact that the employee door wasn’t opening with his passcode was only a minor issue.

Scorponok typed it in three times, careful to make sure each digit was input correctly and in the right order, but the security system beeped sternly at him and the door remained locked. He pulled out the set of keys Megatron had given him, and that also didn’t do the trick. Okay. This was something he’d have to get Tarantulas to fix, ideally before Megatron got back, but it was only an inconvenience, not a disaster. He knocked on the door, hoping someone would open it for him, but it became clear very quickly that nobody was coming. The music was probably too loud—they probably couldn’t even hear him.

Well, fine. There was more than one way into the building. Scorponok circled around and stepped through the front door, twirling the keyring around his pointer finger. It was the lull before lunchtime, and Waspinator was at the counter, ringing up the only person in line. He noticeably paled when he saw Scorponok approach.

“Did you notice the back door’s lock is broken?” Scorponok asked as he slipped behind the counter and made his way to the door to the back.

“No,” Waspinator said, hunching his shoulders. He refused to look Scorponok in the eye. “Waspinator thinks you shouldn’t go back there…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scorponok asked, but he was already pushing the door open.

Terrorsaur stood on the other side, maybe six feet away.

And he was holding a _ rifle _.

And he _ shot Scorponok, point-blank. _

Scorponok stumbled backward, his mind blank with shock. The keys fell to the floor almost in slow-motion. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what had just happened to him. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He knew Terrorsaur didn’t like him, but to hate him enough to shoot him in the chest…?

He brought his hand up to the spot like in the movies, gently touching his fingers to the red that was covering his shirt. It hurt, but… not like he would have expected a gunshot wound to hurt. Maybe because of the shock. But now that he was looking at it, the red on his chest was awfully bright…

Scorponok rubbed some of it between his fingers, and brought it up to his nose to sniff at it. Yeah, okay, it was paint. Terrorsaur had shot him with a paintball gun. He could see the orange tip, now. Real mature.

Terrorsaur was cackling, nearly falling over in his delight, which just made Scorponok’s urge to punch him grow stronger. “You should see the look on your face,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.

Scorponok was not generally a violent person, but right now, he was _ very angry. _

As soon as he took a step forward, Terrorsaur brought the paintball gun up again, this time level with Scorponok’s face. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Scorponok demanded. “Megatron won’t stand for this!”

“Megatron isn’t here. And I think I’m firing you,” Terrorsaur smirked.

“Firing me?” Scorponok repeated, absolutely gobsmacked. “You don’t have the power to fire me, you idiot. You aren’t in charge!”

“Well, I don’t know about that. I have power over the bakery right now. And I have the cooperation of the rest of the employees. So I think I do,” Terrorsaur said.

He was acting… strange, Scorponok noted. He couldn’t exactly place his finger on it. Terrorsaur was always full of himself and a little bit of a bastard, but Scorponok hadn’t thought he’d have it in him to do something like this.

“Tarantulas? Waspinator?” Scorponok asked, looking at each of them in turn. Tarantulas, further in the kitchen, was paying absolutely no attention to what was going on in the doorway. And Waspinator was still refusing to look at Scorponok, and seemed like he might melt into the floor at any moment. “You’re really going to let him do this?”

“Face it! Nobody likes you, and I won!” Terrorsaur declared, cackling loudly. He took an aggressive step forward, to which Scorponok automatically stepped back. “Now, get out of here before I take out an eye!”

Quickly, Scorponok weighed his options. He didn’t doubt Terrorsaur’s willingness to shoot him in the face with the paintball gun, now, and it looked like nobody else was going to help him right now. He needed to regroup.

“I’ll be back,” Scorponok growled.

Terrorsaur grinned at him. “I’ll be waiting.”

His ungodly, shrieking cackle followed Scorponok across the room and out the front door. The handful of people who were in the store were either staring with looks of shock on their faces or were packing up to make a haste exit. Scorponok beat all of them, and walked until he was a couple blocks away. He could almost swear he heard Terrorsaur’s laugh follow him the whole way.

He collapsed onto the first bus stop bench he came across, and just sat there for a little bit, allowing it all to sink in.

That… really had all just happened. Terrorsaur really thought he was going to take over The Predacon. It was ludicrous—Megatron was going to be back in a few days! There was no way this stunt would end well for him, and yet, somehow he’d convinced not only himself but also Tarantulas and Waspinator that this mutiny would be a good idea. Not only that, this meant they were down one more baker. They couldn’t possibly run the whole place successfully with three employees.

Scorponok was halfway through typing out a message to Megatron explaining what had just happened when he stopped himself. Megatron… said he didn’t want to be bothered. And he’d left Scorponok in charge—he’d entrusted his beloved bakery to Scorponok, believing that he could handle anything that came up.

…he could wait on telling Megatron, at least for a little bit. Better yet, Scorponok could regain control of the bakery before he got back, and then he’d know for sure he’d made the right decision putting Scorponok in charge.

He had to walk back to the bakery to pick up his car, but he went straight home after that. He needed to change clothes, and see if he could get the paint out of his uniform shirt. Most importantly, he needed to figure out his next steps.

The bruise currently forming on his chest where he’d been shot with the paintball was a good reminder of how badly he needed to kick Terrorsaur’s ass.

* * *

Rattrap went home after a long, exhausting, and ultimately pointless day at work in low spirits. It was one of the few days he’d been on the clock and not had to be at the bakery, which was always nice, except for when it wasn’t—today being one of those days. He’d been all over town looking for blue and red cupcake papers, and had come up empty-handed at every store. Every store.

Realistically, it wasn’t possible. There was no reason for this one specific thing to be sold out everywhere. The grocery workers Rattrap had talked to seemed just as confused as he was. No matter who he asked, the fact was that they were all gone. He could come back another day.

That was fine, except Optimus had wanted these for a big batch of Juneteenth cupcakes. They were donating most of the cupcakes to a local fundraiser, and the rest would be sold in the bakery, with the proceeds forwarded to the same fundraiser. It wasn’t the end of the world that they didn’t have the right color cupcake paper, but it was what Optimus had instructed Rattrap to find, and he had come up empty handed.

It was stupid and petty, but Rattrap suspected foul play.

There had been these things happening, over time. Megatron was still on their ass constantly, that wasn’t a surprise. But there was a difference between trying to one-up them with bigger and better menu offerings and directly sabotaging their plans. Some of it just didn’t add up. Sometimes it… honestly felt a little like Megatron always knew what they were planning on doing, and took action just before they did it.

The thought marinated in Rattrap’s head as he slipped into the dark, now-closed Maximal Bakery. He thought about it as he relocked the doors and altered the security cameras Rhinox had installed to erase his entrance into the building. He thought about it as he pulled his duffel bag from the furthest corner of one of the least accessible cabinets in the kitchen and started getting ready for bed. He thought about it as he brushed his teeth and rolled out his sleeping bag behind the front counter, and as he set his alarm for 20 minutes before first shift started.

The simplest answer was obvious—Dinobot. It also wasn’t an answer Optimus was willing to hear.

It was ridiculous, if you asked Rattrap. Which nobody ever did. He’d only been working there for maybe two months, and it was like Optimus was willing to die for the guy. There still was no guarantee he wasn’t ratting them out. Someone had to be, there was no other explanation for how things kept disappearing from stores right before they needed them, and Rattrap wasn’t willing to bet it was any of the others.

He was curled up in his sleeping bag scrolling through various social media sites when he found it. There was a new update from The Predacon’s Facebook page, a bunch of text above an image that read, in bold letters, “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.”

Rattrap stared at it for a few long moments. The text of the post said nothing, just that they were “excited to begin this new chapter” for the bakery. Rattrap clicked over to their page, and found an even more recent update, which was a job advertisement. That was understating it a little bit—it almost read like a plea.

The gears turned in his head. New management could only mean that Megatron was gone, which was unthinkable. If Optimus knew anything about this, he would have said something, so it must have been incredibly recent. And if Megatron really was gone, that could change everything for them.

The not knowing was getting tiring. Rattrap was ready to get to the bottom of all this.

He threw together a fake resume and sent it off.

* * *

On Wednesday, Terrorsaur slept through his alarm and woke up with a headache.

He leapt out of bed as soon as he realized what happened, and rushed to get ready for work. Things had gone well yesterday with his new management position—it was a good business day, Terrorsaur figured out how to access the bakery’s social media accounts to make things official (with Tarantulas’s help, mostly in pointing out the little notebook next to Megatron’s desk where he kept all his passwords written down), and Scorponok hadn’t shown his face in the bakery for the rest of the day.

But he could, at any point. Terrorsaur was on his guard the whole day. He stayed late to help Waspinator close, because he didn’t trust Waspinator to face off against Scorponok alone, which meant by the time he left he was exhausted. He collapsed into bed as soon as he got home, not even bothering with finding something to eat. And today he would be doing it all over again.

He jogged most of the way to work, downing the coffee in his travel mug all the while. He had to skip the convenience store for the second dose this time, but maybe Tarantulas would have some instant coffee packets or something. It wasn’t important.

Not only that, as soon as he got to the door to open it, he noticed Scorponok standing at the little cafe across the street, watching. Bad, bad, bad. Terrorsaur almost stopped what he was doing to bring the paintball gun out again, see if brandishing it in his direction did anything. But he was already a few minutes late opening up, and there was someone waiting outside the door for their early morning bagel or whatever, so he couldn’t do that. He had to settle for glaring at Scorponok, and hoping he could see it.

The morning wore on, and Terrorsaur’s headache just got worse and worse. It wasn’t helped by the fact that he had to be at the front counter, serving people and talking to them. Ugh. He had a few coffees, but they just weren’t cutting it, and Terrorsaur was getting desperate.

Except, it kinda was, he realized. His headache grew and grew, not quite to the point of passing out, but it still sucked really bad. He’d been so focused on catching up with the pastry production he’d been able to ignore it, but now that he was unlocking the front doors and preparing for the first early-morning customers of the day, his head was starting to feel like it was splitting in two.

He reached a breaking point when Tarantulas poked his head through the bakery door. “I’m headed out,” he said.

“No!” Terrorsaur screeched, hurting his own head. “No, wait, I need you to cover the counter for me for five minutes.”

Tarantulas gave him a look. “I’m clocked out,” he said.

“Clock back in,” Terrorsaur snapped. “You’re getting paid for this. Just five minutes.”

“Fine,” Tarantulas grumbled, like it was the greatest hardship in the world.

Terrorsaur _ ran _ to the convenience store, paying no attention to Scorponok watching him go or to his pounding headache. He ran all the way up to the tower of Monsters and grabbed one at the top, popped the lid, and started to chug.

The shifts must have changed, because the woman at the counter didn’t recognize him. “Excuse me, sir?” she called, sounding alarmed.

“I’ll pay for it,” Terrorsaur promised, halfway through the can, and then finished it. He could swear he could already feel the headache start to subside, and he sighed in relief.

He brought seven more cans up to the counter and paid for them, then speedwalked back to the bakery. His heart sank when he realized Scorponok was no longer sitting at the outdoor table at the little cafe he’d been at all morning. He sprinted the rest of the way to the bakery and threw open the door to find Scorponok inside, behind the counter, trying to get past Tarantulas, who stood in the doorway to the kitchen with his arms crossed over his chest and a bored look on his face.

“You!” Terrorsaur shrieked, startling not only Scorponok, but all the customers that were in the bakery.

Scorponok’s expression of shock morphed into one of anger, and he grabbed hold of the counter like he was trying to anchor himself in place. “I’m not leaving, Terrorsaur! What you’re doing is illegal!” he declared.

Terrorsaur ran for him full tilt, fully intending to collide bodily with him and force him out of the room. Scorponok seemed to realize this, his eyes growing wide the closer Terrorsaur got, until he finally abandoned his position and dove for the side, out from behind the counter. Terrorsaur slid to a stop, catching himself on the counter, and whirled around to face him again.

“This is ridiculous!” Scorponok complained.

“What are you gonna do? Call the cops?” Terrorsaur demanded. “I don’t think so!” He was confident of that, too—there was too much here the cops could discover if they started snooping around for Scorponok to want to risk that.

“You’re making a scene!” Scorponok hissed, glancing around at the customers who were either watching with interest or making a hasty exit.

“Then get out!”

Scorponok hesitated for just a moment, then planted his feet. “No. I’m in charge here. You need to leave.”

Terrorsaur tackled him to the ground.

As they wrestled on the floor, Terrorsaur was briefly aware of Tarantulas walking past him. “Okay, I’m going home now,” he said. Which meant Terrorsaur was here by himself, with no backup. He was going to have to have a talk with Terrorsaur about this later, but at the moment he was focused on beating Scorponok to a pulp.

In the end, the only way he managed to get Scorponok out of the bakery was to jump up and grab the emergency taser Terrorsaur just remembered they kept behind the counter and brandish it at him. Scorponok backed up quickly once he saw that. Terrorsaur _ so _ wanted to test it out on him, but that would cause more of an incident that he wanted to deal with today. They still had witnesses.

“You’re going to pay for this once Megatron gets back,” Scorponok vowed as he backed up toward the door.

Terrorsaur cackled, feeling a rush of power as the rest of the Monster from earlier kicked in. “I’ve got some of this for him, too!” he called. Scorponok got a good scowl in at him before the door shut behind him and he disappeared down the sidewalk.

There were still a few people in the bakery who had elected to stay and watch the show. Terrorsaur set the taser out of view and smiled at them. “Sorry about that! Some people just can’t deal with being fired, you know? I think I’m gonna need to take out a restraining order or something,” he said.

A couple of the customers nodded hesitantly, and went back to their coffee and breakfast croissants.

Waspinator arrived for work just as Terrorsaur finished picking up the now-dented cans of Monster he’d had to drop when he rushed Scorponok. He left Waspinator to handle the front desk while he went to the kitchen to keep working on the rest of the day's bread and pastry production, but first he took care to stash all but one can of Monster away in a safe, out-of-the-way cabinet.

The morning had been so eventful, Terrorsaur had completely forgotten about the job listing he’d posted the previous evening. As soon as he remembered, he ran to the office and pulled up the bakery e-mail on Megatron’s computer, to find that one single unopened e-mail was waiting for him with the subject line “Job Application.”

Excitement grew as Terrorsaur looked it over. He’d always suspected that nobody was applying because they’d heard The Predacon had a reputation. Hell, Terrorsaur had written a less-than-stellar Glassdoor review about the place himself. Now it looked like he’d been right—all it took was one announcement that Megatron was gone, and within hours they had their first applicant! A pretty qualified one, too, by the looks of it.

He dashed off a reply e-mail, inviting the person to interview as soon as possible—that evening, even. Ten minutes later, he got another e-mail saying they’d be there.

It meant another late night, but that looked like it was going to be par for the course until they got more help trained and ready to go. Plus, if Scorponok was going to keep trying to break back in, Terrorsaur wasn’t willing to take any chances. After the morning's shenanigans, Terrorsaur kept his paintball gun close at hand. Just in case.

That evening, Terrorsaur sat at one of the tables in the dining area while Waspinator worked on cleaning it. Terrorsaur had already cleaned the kitchen. Basically. It was as clean as it was going to get tonight, anyway, and once this interview was over they could close the register and lock up.

_ Finally _. He’d been trying to lay off the caffeine for the last hour or so, so he could actually sleep when he got home.

The bell over the door dinged, and Terrorsaur looked up, eager to see who would hopefully be his first newly hired employee.

It was not who Terrorsaur wanted to see.

Rattrap walked in with his hands in his pocket, looking around at the inside of the bakery with interest. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was there—in fact, as soon as he saw Terrorsaur sitting at one of the tables, he strolled over.

Terrorsaur wasted no time in grabbing the paintball gun and pointing it at the intruder. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, rat, but—”

“Hey, hey, hey! Put that away,” Rattrap said, putting his hands up in surrender. “I ain’t here to cause trouble. I’m here for the interview.”

It took Terrorsaur a moment to connect the dots, but when he did, he groaned. There went his dreams of an easy new hire. “You’re not Jacob!” he hissed.

“Yeah, because you wouldn’ta looked at my application if I’d put my real name,” Rattrap said, like it was obvious. He was infuriatingly calm, considering Terrorsaur hadn’t lowered the paintball gun. “Come on, Terrorsaur. At least let me do the interview. I ain’t rollin’ with the Maximals anymore, and I gotta pay the bills somehow.”

Slowly, Terrorsaur let the paintball gun fall to his side. He studied Rattrap, eyes narrowed, searching for some tell, but Rattrap had definitely gotten his attention. “Oh yeah? And why should I believe that?”

“If you’d worked with those knuckleheads, you wouldn’t be asking that,” Rattrap scowled. “And completely ungrateful! I move myself all the way up here for this bakery, and for what? No one listens to me, I don’t get any respect, and now we’ve got Dinobreath around stinking up the place. Well, no more. I’m done.”

Terrorsaur chuckled, just a little. Dinobreath. That was a pretty good one.

He thought the whole thing over for a moment. It wasn’t… unthinkable, that Rattrap could be telling the truth. And a lot of that sounded awfully familiar. Maybe the two of them were alike—stuck in bad workplaces, trying to take hold of any opportunity to improve their lot in life.

Terrorsaur sighed. “What the hell. We can do the interview,” he relented, gesturing Rattrap to the table he’d been sitting at. “But I don’t trust you.”

“Course not,” Rattrap said cheerfully. He trotted over to the table and took a seat, folding his hands on the tabletop in front of him while Terrorsaur slumped across from him. “So, what do you wanna know?”

“Uh…” Terrorsaur trailed off. He realized at that exact moment that he’d never interviewed anyone before, and had no idea what he was supposed to do. He desperately wanted more caffeine. “Okay. I can buy that you want a new job, but why here? I know you hate this place. We just had that big fight like two months ago.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit I haven’t been too crazy about you guys, but there’s not a lot of places hiring right now. When I saw the announcement that Megs was gone, I figured I’d give it a shot,” Rattrap shrugged. “What happened to him, anyway?”

“That’s none of your business. What matters is that he’s gone and I’m in charge, and it’s going to stay that way,” Terrorsaur said defensively.

“Geez, fine,” Rattrap said. “The point is, as long as he’s gone, I’m good. I can’t stand that guy.”

“You and me both,” Terrorsaur said. “How am I supposed to trust you? You could just be a spy for all I know. We all hate our bosses, that doesn’t mean I have to give you a new job.”

“I thought you might say that, so I came prepared,” Rattrap smirked. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thick wad of folded up notebook paper, which he then took care to unfold until he was left with a few sheets of very creased paper with blue ink scribbled over them. “I copied these down before I left. These are the recipes for some of the Maximal Bakery’s best sellers.”

Terrorsar’s eyes grew wide. He tried to swipe the papers from Rattrap’s hand, but Rattrap pulled them out of range. He kicked his chair back onto two legs and slung his arm over the back, putting the recipes far out of reach. “Hey, hey! Don’t touch the merchandise—these go where I go,” Rattrap said. “No job, no recipes.”

It was a nearly mouth-watering opportunity. Any bakery’s recipes were a carefully-guarded secret. Megatron had been trying to get hold of the Maximal recipes for years now, with no success. For Terrorsaur to do what Megatron had failed to? There would be no doubt who the superior manager was. The bosses back in Philly wouldn’t hesitate to make Terrorsaur’s position official.

He sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and making a show of thinking the proposition over. He couldn’t let Rattrap think he had unlimited bargaining power. “Fine. I think we can probably find a place for you at The Predacon.”

“With health insurance,” Rattrap said.

“Right.”

“And regular raises? I haven’t gotten a raise in ages,” Rattrap said.

Neither than Terrorsaur, now that he thought about it. Sure, that was something he should probably change now. “Fine,” he said.

“You guys got a 401k?” Rattrap asked.

Terrorsaur huffed. “I don’t know, we’ll figure something out,” he said. “But you listen to me. You’re working for me now, got it? Your loyalty isn’t to the bakery or whatever. It’s to me.”

“Hey, if you’re the guy who got rid of Megatron, your wish is my command,” Rattrap said. He held the recipes out across the table. “We got a deal?”

Terrorsaur smirked as he took them. “Deal.”

He scanned through them quickly, struggling to make heads or tails of Rattrap’s handwriting. There wasn’t anything that popped out as obviously revolutionary, but there wouldn’t be, would there? Almost all bread was made of the same four or five basic ingredients. It was the combinations and the preparations that could make or break a loaf. They’d have to do some experimentation with these, but if they could figure them out and start selling the Maximal Bakery’s own signature menu items, surely they could steal business from them. Maybe even enough to get them to shut their doors for good.

The thought of Terrorsaur getting the Maximals to go out of business where Megatron had failed sent tingles down his spine. Terrorsaur wanted to get started immediately.

“So when do you want me to start?” Rattrap asked.

Terrorsaur rose from his chair abruptly. “Right now,” he said. “We can get some of these started tonight so they can bake tomorrow. There’s no time to waste.”

He jumped up and practically ran to the kitchen. Rattrap followed moments later, looking a little bit confused. Terrorsaur was already pulling out a bowl and the bread flour. “Hey, uh… are you sure about this?” he asked. “You look dead tired right now, dude.”

Terrorsaur was. But that wasn’t going to stop him when he had work to do. He grabbed the single can of Monster he’d left on the counter for himself the next morning and threw it back. When he set the half-empty can down again, he noticed Rattrap was watching him with wide eyes. “I’m absolutely sure,” Terrorsaur grinned, feeling better already. “Let’s get to work.”

“Okay… but I want it marked down that I’m on the clock starting now,” Rattrap said.

They worked for two hours. Terrorsaur did most of the actual work, and Rattrap deciphered the recipes and gave him commentary on what looked right and what didn’t. A lot of it… didn’t, to Terrorsaur’s eye.

“Nah, it looks pretty good,” Rattrap assured him. “But hey, if you wanna do it again just to be safe, don’t let me stop you.”

So Terrorsaur did. He made multiple goopy or too-dry blobs of dough for three different recipes before finally calling it a night. It didn’t look like the beginning of any recipes Terrorsaur had ever seen, but maybe that was why they’d never been able to figure these recipes out before. If the Maximals were doing some kind of baking innovation, Terrorsaur would be the first outsider to crack the code.

“See you tomorrow,” Rattrap said at the backdoor once Terrorsaur finally let him leave. “Oh—just so you know, I saw Scorponok hanging around down the road when I got here. Is he supposed to be doing that?"

Terrorsaur groaned. "No! He's just bitter because he got fired," he said. "If you see him around here, you either get rid of him or tell me so I can do it. Got it?"

"You don't have to tell me twice," Rattrap said. He waved before ducking out the back door and disappearing.

Terrorsaur checked the bakery over one last time before he left. He turned off all the lights, checked three times that the security system was set, and threw out the now-empty Monster can before he started on his way home. He was tired enough he didn't think the extra caffeine close to bedtime would do much harm, at this point. That was just part of the job—it was almost a point of pride, if Terrorsaur was being honest. Megatron never pulled long hours like this. He just made other people do it. And now Terrorsaur was well on his way to being a better manager than he ever was, in only a few short days.

He walked home by the light of street lamps, just as he'd arrived. He may have barely seen the sun that day, but he was well on his way to permanently stealing Megatron’s business out from under him.

* * *

Dinobot was… settling in.

That was probably the best way to describe it. Working at the Maximal Bakery was _ profoundly _ different than working at The Predacon, and it was taking some getting used to.

Begrudgingly, Dinobot had to admit to himself that he didn’t _ hate _ it. The work was fine. He got to do something he enjoyed and was good at. His boss generally respected his opinions and gave him virtually free range to practice his craft.

His coworkers could be irritating, but they weren’t impossible. Optimus was even… _ kind _ to him. Rhinox was perfectly civil. Cheetor seemed to be trying very hard to make friends. Every time he got a free moment, he wandered over to Dinobot and watched what he was doing, taking in every detail like he thought he would be tested on it. It was a little bit unnerving, but he just wanted to learn, and Dinobot could respect that. And as much as Dinobot disliked Rattrap, he would take him over Terrorsaur’s screeching any day.

But… it was different. Dinobot had left so much of his life behind when he left The Predacon, in so many different ways. While he didn’t regret it, the fact remained that there were parts of his old life he missed. The bigger things were… unfortunate, and ultimately futile to think about. The smaller things, however, Dinobot could indulge himself in.

There was a Georgian restaurant he’d discovered soon after moving to Providence, only a couple blocks down the road from his old workplace. For a while he’d stayed away, but Megatron hadn’t been as thrilled with it as Dinobot had, so there was little chance of the two of them running into each other there, as long as Dinobot was careful. He’d taken to visiting every other week or so, completely without incident, until tonight.

Tonight, he was walking past The Predacon on his way to the bus stop just as the street lights were starting to come on. The shortest route there took him around the back of the bakery, where the employee door and the little parking lot were, but Dinobot wasn’t going to take the long way around just to avoid the chance of seeing an old coworker. He wasn’t a coward. And he never had run into any of them up to this point.

This time, just as he was halfway past the parking lot and completely out in the open, the employee door opened. Through it stepped Rattrap.

Dinobot stopped, frozen to his spot on the sidewalk. As soon as Rattrap turned around, he and Dinobot locked eyes. Dinobot opened his mouth to say something, but what was there to say? As soon as the dots all connected in his head, his expression of surprise morphed immediately into a hard glare.

Rattrap broke eye contact first, and slipped away in the alley without a word. Dinobot continued his journey home. But the whole time, the incident replayed in his head, over and over and over again.

They had a traitor in their midst. What other explanation could there possibly be? In fact, it would explain some things—like how Megatron kept getting hold of each new PO box, for starters. Had Rattrap been a secret informant the whole time, and Megatron had just kept it from Dinobot? Or was this something new? A response to Dinobot’s presence at his workplace, perhaps. Rattrap always was quick to pin anything that went wrong on Dinobot—was he attempting to frame him? To ruin Dinobot’s reputation in the eyes of his colleagues?

Well, that _ would not _ stand. By the time Dinobot clocked in the next morning, he was ready for a crusade.

“Rattrap is conspiring with the enemy,” he declared as soon as he saw Optimus.

Optimus, in the middle of dumping a 50lb bag of flour into the industrial mixer, paused to tilt his head in confusion. “You’re going to have to back up,” he said, tipping the last little bit of flour in.

“I saw him leaving The Predacon last night, after they were already closed! He left through the employee door,” Dinobot said. “He has sold us out. There is no other reason he could have had to be there at all, much less at that time of night.”

Optimus flattened the now-empty flour bag and set it on the counter with the others. He hummed contemplatively. “Whatever reason he had for being at The Predacon, it can’t be good,” he said, an understatement if Dinobot had ever heard one. “I’ll talk to him when he gets in today.”

“That may be too late!” Dinobot protested. “He’s had unfettered access to information The Predacon may be using against us. There is no other explanation than foul play.”

Optimus sighed. “That may be the most obvious explanation, but I have a hard time believing Rattrap would do something like that. I’ve known him for years. He’s not the easiest person to get along with sometimes, but he wouldn’t sell us out to The Predacon,” he said.

“Perhaps that once was true, but can you really say that with confidence now? You know how he feels about your decision to hire me,” Dinobot pointed out. And if that really was the reason he’d done it, that just made him a coward. Dinobot would have been more than happy for them to settle their differences face-to-face.

“I’ll talk to him,” Optimus repeated firmly. “He’ll be here this afternoon. You focus on your work, and I’ll handle Rattrap.”

Dinobot scowled, but did as he was told. Let Optimus run his business the way he wanted—if he suffered for it, that was not Dinobot’s problem. This was never meant to be a long-term position, anyway.

They worked in relative silence after that. Cheetor arrived for work, as did Rhinox later that morning.

“I’ve been to six different stores today. Not a single one had any red or blue cupcake papers,” Rhinox said.“Rattrap was supposed to go to the rest, maybe he had more luck than I did.”

“None?” Optimus asked.

“Nope,” Rhinox said, shaking his head. “There were just empty spaces where they were supposed to be. I even asked a store associate in two places. They said someone came through and bought out all their stock a couple days ago.”

Dinobot directed a sharp look at Optimus—they had just discussed their limited stock of cupcake papers a few days ago, and now the colors they needed were suddenly nowhere to be found in the whole city of Providence? That could not be a coincidence. Optimus refused to meet his eye.

“That’s going to make preparing for the fundraiser a little more difficult,” he frowned. “We’ll have to order online. Hopefully somewhere will have overnight shipping.”

“I’ll make do with white,” Dinobot said tersely.

Rhinox looked between the two of them in confusion, but no one offered any explanation. Dinobot continued to work in silence, now even more sure than he had been before that Rattrap had betrayed them all.

Finally, Rattrap himself walked in. He and Dinobot immediately locked eyes.

“I’m surprised you bothered to show up today,” Dinobot said neutrally.

Rattrap put his hands in his pockets casually, but his eyes were narrowed when he spoke. “Why’s that? I don’t got anything to hide.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call ‘conspiring with our competitors’ nothing to hide,” Dinobot snapped.

Rattrap laughed. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you!” he said. “One of us has definitely done some conspiring, and it ain’t me! What were you doing down there, anyway?”

“It’s none of your business, but if you _ must _ know, I was having dinner in the area,” Dinobot practically snarled. “Which is not even close to—”

“Dinobot,” Optimus interrupted, drawing all attention to him. “I said I would handle it. Rattrap, let’s talk in the office.”

“Come on! You don’t seriously believe this guy, do you?” Rattrap demanded.

“We’ll talk,” Optimus repeated, more firmly, and gestured to the office. Rattrap went, grumbling the whole way. Optimus followed him and shut the door firmly behind.

It was almost eerily quiet for a few moments, until Rhinox cleared his throat. To tell the truth, Dinobot had forgotten he was here—he and Cheetor, who had poked his head in from the front once the commotion started, were both staring at Dinobot.

“You want to explain what that was all about?” Rhinox asked.

“I saw Rattrap leaving The Predacon through the back door late last night,” Dinobot explained tersely. “He has betrayed us. He must be feeding information to them, there’s no other explanation.”

Rhinox crossed his arms over his chest, his entire body reading skepticism. “That’s impossible,” he said.

“Yeah, Rattrap hates The Predacon. And he’s worked here even longer than me! There’s no way,” Cheetor protested, but Dinobot detected just the smallest hint of doubt.

“Are you willing to bet everything on that?” Dinobot asked. “We still haven’t managed to figure out how they always know what our new PO box is, _ and _ items keep disappearing from store shelves just after we discuss needing them. This is too much to be a coincidence.”

Cheetor opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the muffled sound of raised voices started coming from the direction of the office. It was still impossible to make out most words, but judging from the tone, it didn’t seem to be going well.

“If he didn’t do anything wrong, he would have no reason to become combative,” Dinobot said.

“Most people don’t appreciate being accused of things they didn’t do,” Rhinox said, giving Dinobot a pointed look.

All of a sudden, there was a loud _ “Fine!” _ The door to the office burst open, and Rattrap marched out. “You guys wanna lose the best asset you’ve got, see if I care!” he shouted as he went. He grabbed his bag and stormed out, leaving the heavy employee door to slam behind him.

It was deathly silent for a few moments, before Optimus appeared in the office doorway. “Well, that’s just prime,” he said gravely.

“Optimus?” Cheetor asked, his voice hesitant.

Optimus cleared his throat. “Rattrap no longer works here,” he said. He sounded so tired that for just a brief flicker of a moment, Dinobot felt bad. It was gone the next—it hurt, to find out you’ve been betrayed, but knowing was better than the alternative. “Everyone, get back to work. Cheetor, you need to take a break, I’ll take the register.”

Looking numb, Cheetor moved out of the doorway so Optimus could pass. In spite of the order, Rhinox abandoned his tray of baguettes to follow Optimus to the front counter. Dinobot could just barely hear them talking in low voices, in between put-upon cheery greetings to customers.

Cheetor clocked out for his lunch break, but he didn’t leave the building like normal. Instead, he wandered over to the side of the kitchen Dinobot was using and hoisted himself up to sit on the one table they didn’t use for food prep. He’d still been told not to sit on it, but that hadn’t stopped him yet. Dinobot ignored him until he spoke.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. He sounded lost, maybe almost tearful. “I can’t believe he would do this!”

“Sometimes people surprise you,” Dinobot grunted. He knew that better than anyone.

“There’s just no way,” Cheetor protested, completely stuck on this. “He’s worked here for ages. He taught me all kinds of things. He wouldn’t just sell us out! Maybe it’s a trick, or they’re blackmailing him or something.”

Dinobot frowned. Those were always possibilities, when it came to Megatron, but still. _ “If _he was being blackmailed, having to speak with Optimus in private would have been the best opportunity to come forward and ask for help.”

“Maybe it’s something he didn’t want us to know about,” Cheetor suggested.

“Something worse than betraying his friends to The Predacon?”

Cheetor deflated, looking heartbroken, and again, a little bit of guilt tugged at Dinobot. “Yeah… I guess that doesn’t really make sense,” he said. For a moment, Dinobot thought that would be the end of it, and he would finally be able to get back to focusing on the cake he was icing. “But I still can’t believe he would do that to us. There has to be something else going on.”

Dinobot huffed. “If you’re so reluctant to believe it, perhaps you should go see for yourself,” he snapped.

Just like that, Cheetor perked up. “That’s a great idea,” he said. “I know him better than you, maybe I can figure something out. Would you show me where you saw him?”

Dinobot did not want to do that. He opened his mouth to say no, even, but Cheetor’s pleading eyes bore into him and did not stop until he relented. Which was how he found himself for the second evening in a row hanging around his old workplace, this time waiting for his new coworker to meet him at a nearby bus stop.

Cheetor arrived just a few minutes after he said he would. They’d decided to come a little earlier, before the place closed, to see if they could gain any insight from peering through the windows. Or, Cheetor had decided this—Dinobot had agreed in the hopes that he would find whatever proof he needed to accept reality and stop moping.

They walked over to the cafe across the street and took a seat at one of the outdoor tables. It wasn’t the best view, but they could make out through the window that Waspinator was at the front counter, checking out the couple of people still there so late in the day. It was boring to watch, but Cheetor was keyed in like his life depended on it. If they weren’t careful, they could miss Rattrap leaving through the back door.

Just as Dinobot had the thought, he watched the door to the kitchen swing open, and Rattrap stepped out.

Cheetor gasped. Dinobot ignored him—he watched Terrorsaur walk out behind him and over to the cash register, where he started gesturing to it and talking, probably explaining how it worked and occasionally taking a sip of a can of something in his hand. Waspinator stood off to the side, his arms folded over his chest and hunched over unhappily.

There was no doubt about it. Rattrap was working with The Predacon, and quite possibly had an official job there now as well, given his dramatic resignation earlier that day. Odd that Terrorsaur was the one explaining the register. It must have been pushed off onto him against his will.

“There. Do you believe me now?” Dinobot asked, before turning to look at Cheetor and realizing he probably shouldn’t have said anything. He looked absolutely distressed.

“How could he do this? After everything the Predacons did to us?” he asked, staring at the scene in front of him with round, sad eyes.

Dinobot shouldn’t have come here, probably. He should have just let Cheetor come and find out on his own. He cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to come up with a good way to disengage from this situation, when he heard a voice behind him.

_ “You!” _

Dinobot turned around to look, and found Scorponok, of all people, sitting at the other outdoor cafe table. He was staring and pointing at Dinobot now. Dinobot had no idea how he’d managed to miss one of his least favorite ex-coworkers sitting just a few feet away from him.

“Scorponok,” Dinobot snarled in greeting.

“Do you have something to do with this?” Scorponok demanded, gesturing to The Predacon. He was halfway out of his seat already, and Dinobot rose as well. He didn’t think Scorponok had the guts to start a physical confrontation, but he would be ready for one anyway.

“Something to do with _ what _, exactly?” Dinobot asked testily.

“With… everything! With Terrorsaur!”

Dinobot narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“You don’t know about Terrorsaur?” Scorponok asked, looking surprised. “Well… I’m not going to tell you, then!”

Dinobot took a menacing step closer to him, and Scorponok jumped back. “You can’t make me talk, you traitor!” he shouted, and then legged it down the sidewalk, leaving Dinobot and Cheetor alone.

“What was that all about?” Cheetor asked, watching Scorponok go. If nothing else, the confrontation had at least snapped him out of the throes of his despair.

“There is no way of telling, with Scorponok,” Dinobot sighed. Clearly something was going on that they should keep an eye out for, but they wouldn’t be getting any more information from anyone here on the subject. “I’m going home. You should do the same.”

Cheetor sighed, fidgeting with a napkin on the table. “Yeah,” he said sadly. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It wasn’t like the whole thing was Dinobot’s fault, he told himself on the bus ride home. He hadn’t made Rattrap betray them. Even if he had been the _ cause _ of the defection, the act itself was one of cowardice. Dinobot had done the right thing by exposing him. Who knew how much information he’d already let slip, and how much damage he’d already caused? People would always inevitably disappoint you—it was a fact of life.

Better for Cheetor to learn this early.

* * *

Time was running out, and Scorponok was starting to panic. Just a little bit. Just the tiniest little bit.

Megatron hadn’t said when he would return, other than a vague ‘before the weekend is over.’ He also wasn’t answering any texts—the one from yesterday evening, assuring him that everything was going fine and asking what day he thought he might be back, was met with silence. Scorponok had _ no idea _ what sort of chaos was going on in there with Terrorsaur in charge, but he knew he was running out of time to correct it.

Well. He had _ some _ idea. His run-in with the traitor Dinobot and his little Maximal friend had made sure of that.

Colluding with the enemy was taking it too far. Whether Rattrap was currently working as a Maximal agent or not was irrelevant—he was the enemy, and Terrorsaur had made a grave mistake. It was time to switch tactics.

Thursday morning, Scorponok waited outside the bakery and prepared to put his new plan into action. All he needed was an opening, and with how low The Predacon was on manpower just then, he didn’t think that would be hard to find. He waited around until the early morning restocking was done, until there was a lull in foot traffic after the morning rush, and waited until finally, _ finally _, Waspinator ducked into the kitchen, leaving the front counter unattended.

Scorponok slipped through the front door. He ignored the hastily scrawled “BE BACK LATER” sign lying on the counter, and, as inconspicuously as possible, folded himself into the bottom shelf behind the counter.

Mostly, this bottom shelf was where they stored excess napkins and plastic silverware and bits of random paper nobody wanted to deal with. Scorponok shoved them aside as carefully as he could. It was uncomfortable, but he was mostly out of sight. From here, he was in the perfect position to eavesdrop. The voices were muffled, but he was close enough that he could make it all out fairly clearly, even though they were clearly trying not to make too much of a fuss and disturb any clientele.

He was also in the perfect position to catch the beginning of an argument.

_ “You must be joking,” _ came Tarantulas’s voice through the kitchen door. _ “You can’t hire a Maximal.” _

_ “This is my bakery, and I can do whatever I want,” _ Terrorsaur said firmly. _ “Rattrap isn’t a Maximal anymore. He works for me!” _

_ “Waspinator does not trust it! Must be some kind of trick!” _

_ “Are you doubting my judgment?” Terrorsaur demanded. _

Tarantulas sighed. _ “Perhaps we shouldn’t be having this conversation _ in front of _ the Maximal.” _

There was a tense silence, and Scorponok strained to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

_ “Fine,” _ Terrorsaur said curtly. _ “Rattrap, go wait up front. I’m sure this won’t take long.” _

The door opened, and Scorponok held his breath, nervous that the Maximal spy wouldn’t happen to look the wrong way and spot his hiding place. But Rattrap just walked on through and leaned against the front counter with his phone out. He could be sending information to the Maximals so easily right now, but that wasn’t a problem Scorponok was prepared to solve at that exact moment.

The voices inside the kitchen were quieter now, so Scorponok had to really focus to hear them.

_ “We need more employees and you know it!” _

_ “I told you I knew someone who could start next week,” _ Tarantulas said.

_ “Which is great, but we need someone sooner than that,” _ Terrorsaur replied. _ “Besides, this is the perfect opportunity to get Maximal secrets that Megatron was never able to figure out!” _

_ “Oh, you mean like the bread you made this morning that was a total disaster?” _ Tarantulas asked.

Terrorsaur sputtered right as Rattrap snickered softly. _ “Those were just first tries! I’ll get it right!” _ he insisted. _ “And once I do and we’re able to steal Maximal menu items, you’ll regret complaining like this!” _

_ “Waspinator still doesn’t like it,” _ Waspinator huffed. _ “Rattrap has been enemy to Predacons for years!” _

_ “Yeah, well, it’s not about Maximals and Predacons anymore. Megatron is a bad boss, and so is Optimus. We’re killing two birds with one stone here,” _ Terrorsaur insisted.

As indignant as Scorponok felt at the criticism of Megatron—likening him to Optimus was just unacceptable—there were more important things going on right now. It was high time he made his entrance.

Scorponok gripped the umbrella he’d brought with him close to his chest, took a deep, slow breath, and rolled out from under the counter and onto his feet. Rattrap yelped in surprise, but Scorponok barreled right past him and into the kitchen before he could react beyond that.

“Don’t let him trick you!” Scorponok declared, brandishing the closed umbrella. “This is a mistake and you know it!”

Four pairs of wide eyes were on him—those of his coworkers, and Rattrap, who had pushed the door open just a crack to poke his head in and watch the confrontation—but Terrorsaur recovered quickly.

“Not you again!” Terrorsaur screeched. There was a can of Monster in his hand, and he squeezed it, crinkling the can in anger. “What do I have to do to you to get you to _ leave?” _

“Megatron put me in charge, and I’m not going to let him down!” Scorponok declared. He looked at Tarantulas and Waspinator imploringly. “You can’t just let him bring a Maximal in here! You know this is a bad idea. He can’t fight back against all three of us?”

Terrorsaur actually _ growled _. “You wanna bet?” he asked, then slammed back the last of whatever was in the can and grabbed his paintball gun that was always lying in wait.

Scorponok had come prepared for this. He opened his umbrella and held it in front of him as a shield, then charged Terrorsaur, knocking him to the ground and coming down on top of him.

“Get _ off _ me!” Terrorsaur shrieked, punching wildly at the umbrella shield and whatever was behind it, which just so happened to be Scorponok’s face. Scorponok ignored him, focusing instead on getting the paintball gun out of Terrorsaur’s grip and throwing it out of reach. That just made Terrorsaur angrier, and it turned into a full on wrestling match there on the floor. No one bothered to intervene. Scorponok nearly got his eye poked out a few times from the umbrella spokes, but it was going well for the first little bit… until it wasn’t.

Scorponok wasn’t even entirely sure how it happened. One moment, he seemed to be on top. The next, he was facedown on the floor of the kitchen and Terrorsaur had his arms pinned painfully behind his back. Any attempt to struggle was met with a knee pressed harder into his back.

He looked up at Waspinator and Tarantulas as best he could. “Do something!” he pleaded.

“Try it! I dare you!” Terrorsaur barked at them.

Tarantulas and Waspinator refused to meet Scorponok’s eye. His heart sunk. Clearly, no help would be coming from these cowards. How was it that Scorponok was the only one here who understood loyalty?

Terrorsaur bodily dragged Scorponok to the back door. It wasn’t easy, because Scorponok weighed more than Terrorsaur did, but he was also bruised and out of breath and coming to terms with his failure, so he didn’t struggle as much as he could have.

“And _ stay out _this time!” Terrorsaur snapped as he dropped Scorponok’s limp body on the other side of the door and slammed it shut behind him. Scorponok lay there for a few minutes, just sitting with the reality of what had just happened. He’d been sure this Maximal issue would have been enough to convince Tarantulas and Waspinator to take back power from Terrorsaur. He’d been wrong. They were still siding with Terrorsaur, and allowing Rattrap to infiltrate the bakery. What was he going to tell Megatron?

Eventually, Scorponok picked himself up and wandered home. There was nothing more he could do today, or possibly ever. He could already feel the shame Megatron would surely heap on him for failing to keep the bakery under control for just a few days.

* * *

“This still isn’t right!” Terrorsaur snapped.

Rattrap turned away from the ancient cash register he was still trying to get the hang of and looked instead to Terrorsaur, standing in the doorway to the kitchen holding out a bowl of soppy dough and looking displeased. Rattrap peered into the bowl. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“It’s too wet!” Terrorsaur insisted. “I followed the instructions exactly, and every time it ends up like this!”

“It’s full hydration dough. It’s supposed to be like that,” Rattrap said innocently.

That just got him a sharp glare. “I _ know _ how baking works! This is way more than 100% hydration,” Terrorsaur said. “You must have written something down wrong.”

Rattrap shrugged. “I don’t think so, but maybe there’s a secret step or somethin’ they never told me about,” he said. “I was more the bagel guy.”

“We already _ have _ a good bagel recipe,” Terrorsaur groaned. He set the bowl down on the table just inside the kitchen and walked over to the cash register. “Here, I’ll show you how to close.”

Rattrap had only been officially working here for one full day, but it had been a very enlightening day. Not only had he gained some insights into how The Predacon was run, he also got to see just what a mess it was. The fistfight in the middle of the kitchen was more than enough to make Rattrap glad he wasn’t working here for real. Maybe it was normal when Terrorsaur wasn’t in charge, but Rattrap didn’t want to take the risk.

The confirmation that Megatron was gone was nice. Terrorsaur wouldn’t talk about why, or how long he would be gone, and Rattrap didn’t want to push it. But it did give him some flexibility on how he handled things here. Rattrap wasn’t afraid of many things, and Terrorsaur wasn’t one of those things. Megatron, though, could cause problems.

They closed the register and locked the doors, and Rattrap followed Terrorsaur around as he explained what needed to be prepared for the next day before they left for the night. He didn’t put too much effort into remembering any of it—hopefully he’d be gone before he needed to do any actual work here—but it was nice to essentially get a free tour of enemy territory.

That tour came to a screeching halt once they got to the corner where it looked like flour was normally kept. There was a stack with two big 50-pound bags, but no more.

“Where did all the flour go?” Terrorsaur demanded, looking around as if it could be hidden somewhere.

“Uh… I’m guessin’ we used it?” Rattrap suggested.

Terrorsaur glared at him. “There should have been a delivery, we never let it get this low!” he said. “When do they normally come in…? _ Ugh _, this is never going to last us the whole day tomorrow.”

Honestly, it was too easy. Rattrap didn’t even have to do anything. They were sabotaging themselves.

Terrorsaur sighed, rubbing his temples. He looked exhausted. It was almost enough to make Rattrap feel bad. Almost, but not quite. “I’ll have to go to Costco tomorrow or something,” he groaned. “Whatever. Let’s just go. I need sleep.”

The two of them left together. Rattrap watched Terrorsaur arm the security system and then walked off in the opposite direction as him, with no immediate destination in mind. He’d be back soon enough, and he didn’t feel like going to sleep only to make his way back here in a few hours.

In the end, Rattrap found a sports bar. He had dinner, ignored some more texts from Rhinox, and nursed a couple of drinks until they kicked everyone out for the night. By that point, it was about 2AM. Probably safe to get started.

The Predacon had spared no expense on the security system, but it wasn’t anything Rattrap hadn’t seen before, and now that he had his own code to get in he didn’t even need to do anything fancy to get inside. It was kind of a bummer. He disabled the alarm easily, and then looked at the veritable playground before him, possibilities flashing through his mind.

Before he could even get started, a flash of yellow caught his attention—he looked up and locked eyes on a rubber duck sitting on a shelf on the far wall, high above eye level but looking down on its domain below. For half a second, Rattrap almost could have sworn he saw it move, but no. It was a little freaky, but it was just a rubber duck. Rattrap had more important things to worry about right now.

He went through the kitchen methodically, starting on the righthand side of the room and making his way around until he reached the office. He pulled things out of cupboards, he mixed ingredients together and switched things around so they’d be harder to find. Nothing too destructive, although he did wear gloves just to be safe, to make sure he wasn’t leaving fingerprints everywhere. And he also sliced open the couple bags of flour they had left, letting them drain out onto the floor. Terrorsaur would be making that Costco run sooner rather than later, and he wouldn’t even come back with good flour.

The only obvious thing that popped out in the kitchen was that, in one of the lower cabinets in the back corner, there were boxes and boxes and boxes of cupcake papers. Red and blue cupcake papers, specifically. Just like the Maximals hadn’t been able to find anywhere. Eyes narrowed, Rattrap grabbed a couple boxes, stuffed them in his backpack, and continued on. It confirmed his suspicions, but it wasn’t definitive proof of the kind he was looking for.

The office looked like it would be a goldmine. For one, the computer was still booted up and also wasn’t even locked, which made things very easy. The machine was old, and parts of the tower were literally being held together with duct tape. There were wires sprouting from it leading to all directions, connecting it to the security camera monitor right next to it and to who knew what else, taped to the floor and disappearing into the wall or ceiling like it was.

It didn’t matter. Rattrap started poking around on the computer, and found all kinds of interesting things. There was saved security footage, both from The Predacon and what they’d gotten from the Maximal Bakery before their cameras had been taken out. There were saved invoices from vendors, which Rattrap took pictures of just so they’d know where their competitors were getting supplies from, at least. He even found some files for payroll, and quickly scanned through the names there.

Dinobot wasn’t listed, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Rattrap would just keep looking.

He shuffled through some drawers next. There was a well-used composition book on the top of one, filled with account usernames and passwords. Rattrap took quick pictures of every single one with glee, almost salivating at the thought of what he could do with those. Then, in the same drawer, he found an old-looking receiver. It wasn’t obviously connected to anything, but when Rattrap flipped it on, a red light started to flash on it. He put it up to his ear and didn’t hear anything more than static.

Rattrap could have put it down and kept going, but something bugged him—a suspicion he needed to rule out, if nothing else. He opened the app on his phone dedicated to controlling the smart speaker he’d stowed in the bakery, in spite of Rhinox’s protests about data security and whatever else. It was convenient, and now, it would be useful. He switched to his music tab and opened the first thing that popped up, and then held the receiver to his ear. A few seconds later, the first few notes of My Way by Frank Sinatra floated through.

Well, damn it. That would explain a lot. And in a way that wouldn’t necessarily implicate Dinobot, considering this had been happening before Dinobot got hired.

Rattrap shoved down his frustration and stowed the receiver in his backpack—he could worry about the rest of it later, and once he was back at the Maximal bakery he would need to look for the microphone it was picking up on. Now, he needed to get as much useful information as he could find, wrap up here, and get the hell out.

Once he was done rooting through cabinets, Rattrap started messing around with the security cameras. He shut them off, for one, and then went back and erased the last 24 hours. He started unplugging wires from the computer tower at random, just to be an inconvenience. He was just about to do a final sweep to make sure there wasn’t anything he missed before leaving when he heard the sound of the employee door opening and clicking shut.

Rattrap froze. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. He glanced down at the computer and saw that the time was 4:05AM. Terrorsaur had said Tarantulas wasn’t scheduled to start until 4:30 unless it was a weekend, and Rattrap was sure he’d disabled the alarm correctly. He’d wanted to be out of here by 4, but it was still too early for anyone to be here.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a direct line of sight from the employee door to the desk in the office. As soon as Rattrap heard footsteps, he tiptoed over to the office door and hid between it and the wall, his backpack clutched in one hand beside him so as to make himself as small and flat against the wall as possible. He heard shuffling in the kitchen, someone picking their way through the mess he’d made—which could have been much, much worse, he would add—and making their way towards the office. Rattrap kept his breathing steady and quiet, and desperately grappled for some way out of this.

Before he’d come up with anything, a figure stepped through the door and casually strolled over to the computer at the desk. It only took a few seconds more to identify it as Tarantulas. Why was it always Tarantulas?

He walked over to the desk and took a seat in Megatron’s cushy office chair, looking over the desktop and then reaching for the mouse to click away aimlessly on the computer. Rattrap was sweating. He could just barely see Tarantulas from behind the door, so surely, if Tarantulas looked up, he’d be able to see Rattrap, too.

Tarantulas hummed to himself. “Not as bad as I expected,” he muttered. Then, louder, “it’s certainly interesting that you held yourself back, rat.”

_ Shit _, okay. Time to go.

Rattrap leapt out from behind the door, one hand clutching his backpack to his chest and the other on the door handle, which he used to make a quick turn around the door and launch himself into the kitchen. Unfortunately, as soon as he was out, he slipped on some of the flour he’d spilled, and as he tried to regain his balance, Tarantulas knocked him the rest of the way to the floor.

The ensuing struggle kicked up flour everywhere. They were both covered in it in seconds. “What are you even doing here so early?” Rattrap demanded as he shielded his hair from being grabbed.

Tarantulas cackled. “I have my own separate security system that you tripped up,” he explained pleasantly. “I knew you would slip up, I just didn’t expect it to be this quickly.”

“Yeah, well, this place is nuts and I’m not stayin’ here any longer than I have to,” Rattrap said.

“I’m afraid you’re going to be here for quite some time,” Tarantulas chuckled.

Rattrap didn’t think so. He reared back his head and smashed it into Tarantulas’s nose. He used the disorientation that caused to slip out of Tarantulas’s reach, grab the nearest solid object, and nail him over the head with it. That object happened to be a stainless steel baking sheet, and the sound it made connecting with Tarantulas’s skull seemed to reverberate through the kitchen. He dropped like a rock.

“Oh, shit,” Rattrap winced. In the moment he’d definitely meant to knock Tarantulas out, but now that it was done it felt like maybe that hadn’t been the best idea. But hey, the security cameras were off and now he could leave unhindered.

Rattrap had just finished checking to make sure Tarantulas wasn’t dead or bleeding out and was about to leave when an ear-splitting alarm started to go off.

“Come _ on! _ What else could go wrong?” Rattrap asked the heavens. Then he heard a faint _ click _ from the employee door. Dread crept up on him as he approached it and tried to push it open. He shook on the handle. It didn’t budge. And the front door needed a physical key to open. Great! This was just perfect.

Rattrap sank to the floor just as an ear-piercing alarm started to go off, and, with a heavy sigh, he sent out an SOS text.

* * *

When Dinobot arrived at work, Optimus was already there.

This wasn’t _ unusual _, on a normal day. He frequently worked the early shifts, and would sometimes arrive even earlier to get administrative work done before he started baking for the day. But today, Dinobot knew Optimus wasn’t on the schedule, and Dinobot himself had come early to finish the large batch of Juneteenth cupcakes before he got started with his normal repertoire. He’d expected to be alone, but the lights were already on, and Dinobot could see Optimus sitting at the computer in the cramped office. He gave Dinobot a distracted wave, but otherwise didn’t comment.

Dinobot got to work, wanting to get as much done as possible before Cheetor arrived. He’d started training, as Dinobot had agreed to do, and… It wasn’t that Cheetor was bad. He was decent, as far as beginners went. Clearly he had done some reading, and some practice at home. But it was always easier and faster to do something yourself than to teach someone else how to do it, and watch them struggle and make mistakes. And Cheetor always wanted to talk to him, about anything that was on his mind, and quite frankly, Dinobot couldn’t keep up. He had no idea what Cheetor was talking about more often than not.

Rhinox arrived for work, and then so did Cheetor, and Optimus was still here. He emerged from the office eventually, and helped out with the morning’s task, but he seemed… distracted. He almost looked like he was pacing. Dinobot couldn’t shake the feeling he was waiting for something.

“Is this right?” Cheetor asked, pulling Dinobot’s attention back to the table in front of him. Cheetor had iced a line of cupcakes, each one a little steadier than the last.

“It’s fine,” Dinobot commented, examining them closely. He glanced back at Cheetor, who was watching him nervously. “Are you still resting your elbows on the table?”

“Uh… maybe,” Cheetor admitted.

Dinobot huffed, and grabbed a piece of parchment paper to set in front of him. “Here. Cover this in straight lines with the tip you have on now,” he instructed.

Cheetor groaned. “That’s so boring!” he complained. “I’m getting better, right?”

“Better, but you’ll never be truly _ good _ until you have the foundations down,” Dinobot said, his tone leaving no room for further complaint. “Fill the sheet. And keep your arms off the table.”

Cheetor did as he was told, but not without a dramatic sigh. That would keep him busy for a little bit, which would hopefully allow Dinobot enough time to finish what was in front of him. Then they could switch to learning about shaping danishes, perhaps.

When Dinobot looked up, he realized Optimus had stopped his pacing and was watching the two of them, a fond smile on his face. He looked like he wanted to say something, but stayed quiet. Dinobot scowled, unsure at that moment how to make his face do anything else or even how to interpret the look.

Just then, Optimus’s phone chirped, and he jumped. Dinobot watched him, brows furrowed, as Optimus looked at the notification he received. He watched Optimus’s expression shift to one of alarm.

“We have to go,” he said, loudly and urgently. It startled Cheetor enough that his arm jerked, leaving a crooked diagonal line of icing across his parchment paper.

“Go where?” Rhinox asked, head tilted curiously.

“Rattrap is in trouble. We have to go now,” Optimus said. He removed his apron and threw it on the nearest counter on his way to the back door.

“That traitor?” Dinobot sneered. “Any trouble he’s gotten himself into is his own doing.”

Optimus held the door open and fixed Dinobot with a look. _ “Now,” _ he said.

It… was enough to shake Dinobot’s resolve, anyway. He looked to Cheetor and Rhinox, who were themselves exchanging glances of confusion. Cheetor made up his mind first, and dropped the piping bag to dash out the door. Rhinox follows close behind him, and Dinobot…

Well. He didn’t _ like _ the idea of leaving when he has a lot of work to do. But something was going on, clearly, and he didn’t want to miss it. Optimus locked the door behind him, and the four of them piled into Optimus’s car and drove away.

* * *

Terrorsaur felt like he’d been asleep for a grand total of 17 minutes when his phone started to ring. Normally he’d silence it and roll over, but right now he was so on edge he nearly catapulted himself out of bed and onto the floor in his mad scramble to grab it.

It was an unknown number. Calling at an ungodly hour. The screen blurred in front of his eyes as Terrorsaur’s hand shook. He groped blindly for the half-empty Monster can he’d left on his bedside table from the day before and downed it, then hit the green button.

The security company was on the other end, letting him know that someone or something had tripped the alarm. They offered to send police, in a very bored and professional tone.

“No, I’ll go check it out,” Terrorsaur said automatically. How had they gotten his number? Tarantulas had probably switched it over, when Terrorsaur told him to handle that stuff. He just hadn’t been clear on exactly which stuff needed to be handled, which was why he told Tarantulas to do it.

Speaking of Tarantulas. Terrorsaur peered at the numbers on his alarm clock. He definitely should have already been at work by now. He knew how to disable the alarm. Why was this happening right now?

“It may be dangerous. We recommend having a police officer accompany you when you enter the building,” the security employee warned flatly.

“I’ve got it,” Terrorsaur said, more firmly this time. The last thing he needed was a cop snooping around. If they were getting robbed, sure, he’d call 911—and use the time it took them to get there to hide anything incriminating.

That would be a problem for later. Terrorsaur texted Tarantulas, then rolled out of bed and grabbed some cleanish clothes. It had been a while since he’d had the time to do laundry. He really wasn’t awake enough yet. He stumbled into the kitchen looking for another Monster only to find that… there were none. He remembered suddenly that the one in his bedroom had been his last one.

Great. Great! Terrorsaur could already feel the headache coming on. He would just… he’d just have to pick up more on the way to the bakery. It would be fine.

He put on shoes, grabbed his wallet and keys, and headed out into the darkness of the far-too-early morning. It was fine. It was only an hour or so before his alarm would have gone off, anyway. Didn’t matter. It was probably just… a rat or something that had tripped the alarm. He could get an exterminator. He could figure out how to getting an exterminator works. No big deal.

Terrorsaur’s whole world came crashing down around him when he stepped into the convenience store. The Monster display was gone. Gone like it had never been there in the first place. Terrorsaur speed walked to the drinks section, where the energy drinks normally resided, but the spot where the Monster should be was completely empty.

Terrorsaur ran to the front counter. “Where’s the Monster?” he demanded, hands flat on the counter.

The cashier squinted at him, before realization dawned on him. “Oh, the drink? We’re on back order,” he said. “The BOGO thing went way better than management expected it to, I guess, so we ran out pretty quick. The delivery truck didn’t make it yesterday, so I don’t know when we’ll be getting more. Sorry.”

“No!” Terrorsaur screeched. This was, quite literally, the worst thing that could have happened to him. What was he supposed to do now? He’d been relying on those! He’d gotten so much more done, he’d accomplished so much! Was he supposed to just let that go? To go back to normal? He could always try a Redbull, but the thought made him shudder. Around here, brand loyalty meant something.

He took some deep, shaky breaths as he walked back to the aisles, completely ignoring the cashier’s perplexed look at his outburst. Get it together, he told himself. He’d taken over The Predacon all by himself. That had been him, regardless of what he’d been drinking at the time. Besides, other stores sold Monster. He’d just have to go to one once this issue with the alarm was sorted out.

It would be fine. Terrorsaur grabbed his normal morning coffee and went on his way.

He wasn’t sure what to expect when he got to the bakery, but it looked quiet enough from the outside. There wasn’t any sign of damage or tampering around the employee door. The kitchen didn’t have windows, so he walked around to the front and peered inside. There, everything looked exactly the same as it had before. He could see from the window in the door to the kitchen that the light was on in there, which at this time of morning should have been the case. He checked his phone to find that Tarantulas still hadn’t answered him.

The whole thing was strange, for sure, but still not something Terrorsaur wanted to call the cops for just yet. He decided to approach through the front, so he could peek in on the situation in the kitchen without immediately exposing himself. He unlocked the front door and closed it gently behind him, and slowly crept across the floor and behind the counter and peered through the kitchen window.

What he saw inside was… chaos. Flour everywhere, pans and baking sheets removed from cabinets and scattered, an overturned proofing rack, and… Tarantulas, unconscious on the floor. And the flashing red light of the alarm casting an eerie glow on the scene. And Rattrap, fiddling with the control panel as he tried to turn it off.

Anger surged through him as the whole scene sunk in. Someone _ had _ broken in, and it was someone Terrorsaur had opted to trust. No wonder none of those supposed Maximal recipes had worked out.

He burst through the kitchen door, causing Rattrap to jump a foot in the air and whirl around, pressing his back against the wall.

_ “You!” _ Terrorsaur accused, pointing at him.

“Oh, hey there, boss,” Rattrap said, smiling nervously. “Looks like there was a break-in, I was just tryin’ to figure out what the perps took when this thing started going off.”

“You expect me to believe that? Your shift doesn’t even start until 10!” Terrorsaur shouted. He pointed to Tarantulas, unmoving on the floor with his hands tied in front of him with ribbon for the pastry boxes. “Is he dead?!”

“No! I made sure,” Rattrap said, putting his hands up like he was still trying to pretend he was innocent. It just made Terrorsaur more angry. “The dude snuck up on me, it was an honest mistake. I swear.”

“You betrayed me!” He couldn’t believe Rattrap was still avoiding addressing this one point. “I gave you a job and this is how you repay me?”

Rattrap huffed. “Well, you know what? Maybe if you guys would just leave us alone, I wouldn’t have to stoop to stuff like this!”

Terrorsaur started to rush him, but before he even crossed half of the kitchen, another voice joined the fray.

“I knew it!” Scorponok shouted.

Terrorsaur growled in frustration. “How did you get in here?” he demanded, spinning on his heel to face his mortal enemy, standing in the kitchen doorway.

“You left the front door unlocked,” Scorponok said. “I told you he was spying on us! This is why you can’t be left in charge!”

Now there were two people on opposite sides of the room that Terrorsaur very much wanted to punch, and he was stuck in the middle. Who to take on first? Terrorsaur’s head hurt.

“You guys can fight this out all you want. I’m leaving,” Rattrap said, and Terrorsaur looked over his shoulder at him only to realize he’d unearthed the paintball gun. He was holding it at the ready, alternating between pointing it at Terrorsaur and Scorponok. “If you could move away from the door, please.”

Scorponok just planted his feet more firmly taking up the entire doorway. “I’m not letting you get away! Who knows what kind of secrets you’ve taken,” he said.

“For once, I agree with you,” Terrorsaur sneered in Scorponok’s. “Let’s take care of this rat, and then I can deal with you.”

Rattrap’s eyes widened in fear as Terrorsaur approached. He leveled the gun at Terrorsaur, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He’d gotten shot with paintball guns so many times in his life he was immune. He only distantly registered the sound of the front door opening yet again, and only stopped when he heard a big _ oof _ come from Scorponok’s direction.

“Oh, come _ on!” _ Terrorsaur screeched as he watched Rhinox, of all people, barrel into the room, knocking Scorponok to the floor in the process. And that wasn’t all—he was followed by Optimus, Cheetor, and Dinobot.

Terrorsaur was rapidly losing control of this situation and of himself. He could feel himself start to shake, not from fear, but from _ need _. He needed another Monster, right now, and there wasn’t one in sight.

“Ha!” Rattrap laughed triumphantly. He dashed past Terrorsaur before he could even do anything about it. He made an abortive movement to intercept him, but was unsuccessful, and the sudden movement just made his headache worse.

Here, Terrorsaur could acknowledge that he was outnumbered. He wasn’t going to win this fight alone, especially not while dealing with caffeine withdrawal, and if he went off to find some, they would be gone by the time he got back. Why did they even bring four people to pick up one guy? Seemed like overkill.

Rattrap was being urgently ushered through the door, but he paused long enough to add insult to injury. “Thanks for bein’ so gullible, screamy!” he called.

Terrorsaur growled in anger and frustration—every part of his body wanted to tackle him and throttle him, but every part of his brain wanted to curl into a little ball in the closet and die. “I’ll get you back for this!” he settled on yelling, but it fell a little flat when the Maximals were already halfway out the door and the only one left in the room and conscious was Scorponok.

He pulled himself to his feet with a grimace, brushing flour off his clothes, before leveling a piercing glare in Terrorsaur’s direction. Luckily, Terrorsaur was used to being glared at by Scorponok. “I _ told _ you,” he said accusingly. “Now the Maximals probably have all kinds of information about us, and it’s all your fault! Megatron didn’t build this business just for you to hire Maximals the second he leaves!”

Terrorsaur rolled his eyes. “Megatron didn’t build this business and you know it! He just piggybacked off his dad,” he said. His headache pounded insistently behind his eyes. At this point, any caffeine would be better than none. “I can’t deal with you right now. I need coffee.”

He made a move to go to the front and start up the coffee machine when they heard the sound of the front door opening yet again. The two of them froze as they listened to the click of shoes against the linoleum flooring in a familiar gait that chilled Terrorsaur to the bone. No, no, not now, he just needed some more time to—

Megatron walked through the door. Terrorsaur’s stomach dropped.

“Megatron, you’re back!” Scorponok cried out joyfully. “Did you get my texts? Or my voicemails? I tried to warn you about—”

“I got them,” Megatron said. He fixed Terrorsaur with a look that made him feel like he was being skewered, which wasn’t too far from the realm of possibility for him—would this be enough to warrant him getting a hitman? Or would he just be blacklisted for all of eternity? “They were very _ enlightening, yes.” _

“Uh,” Terrorsaur said eloquently. He was out of options here. There was no escape route. He still really, desperately needed that coffee.

“I tried to stop him,” Scorponok said. He actually sounded a little worried. “Everyone turned against me!”

“Scorponok, wake Tarantulas up,” Megatron ordered. “I’m going to call in Waspinator. It’s time we had a company meeting.”

Then he just… walked into his office. He didn’t bar the doors to keep Terrorsaur from leaving, and he didn’t give him any orders. No threats, no punishments. Yet, anyway. Terrorrsaur could make a break for it now. This would be the only chance he got. But he knew that in the long run, that would just make things worse for him. Megatron would find him if he wanted to—better to face him head-on, and have a chance of defending himself against Scorponok’s accusations.

With nothing else to do while they waited for Waspinator to show up, Terrorsaur got a cup of coffee and then started to clean up the mess Rattrap had made. He put all the pans and baking sheets in the sink to be washed later and swept around Tarantulas, who was coming to after Scorponok sprinkled water on his face. He was about halfway through with the kitchen when Waspinator walked in.

“What happened?” he asked, looking around bleary-eyed and confused. “Waspinator always misses everything.”

Megatron rounded the four of them up and stood in front of them with his arms crossed over his chest, his expression grave. “I left for one week,” he started.

“I tried to—”

“I’m talking now,” Megatron said, silencing Scorponok immediately. “I left for one week, and it seems the structure of this bakery changed drastically while I was gone. This was not my intention, but I’m sure all of you know that.”

It was quiet, as all four of them diverted their gaze for different reasons.

“I must say, Terrorsaur showed quite a bit of initiative,” Megatron continued. “Since you’ve never shown that sort of initiative before, Terrorsaur, I had no idea you were looking for a management position. Now that I know, I would be happy to start giving you more responsibility.”

Terrorsaur’s head snapped up, as did Scorponok’s. “…what?” Terrorsaur asked.

“Yes, not just anyone would take matters into their own hands like that. I’m impressed. Ambition like that deserves to be rewarded,” Megatron said. “Why don’t you finish out the weekend as interim manager of The Predacon? I believe you’ve earned it.”

Scorponok’s mouth hung open in shock, which would be pretty funny if Terrorsaur were in any state of mind to appreciate it just then.

“Are you serious?” Terrorsaur asked faintly.

“You’re rewarding him for stabbing you in the back?” Scorponok echoed, absolutely flabbergasted. “But what about me? I tried to protect the bakery for you!”

“Now, Scorponok, you’ll have your turn. Let Terrorsar have his,” Megatron said pleasantly, but he wasn’t looking at Scorponok when he said it. He was staring Terrorsaur down. “You seemed to be doing such a good job on your own, Terrorsaur, I would be remiss to interrupt. Finish out your little experiment. I won’t interrupt.”

“Uh… okay,” Terrorsaur said.

Two more days of… this. The kitchen was a wreck, they should have started getting things into the oven an hour ago, and they were out of flour. And Terrorsaur’s head still hurt in spite of the coffee, and he’d gotten a handful of hours of sleep over the entirety of the last week. Great.

“Now, before I leave you alone, I do have one quick announcement,” Megatron said. “As you all know, we’ve been short staffed for some time now, and I realize it has been a strain on everyone. I’ve extended a job offer to Tarantulas’s contact, and she has accepted, so she’ll be starting Monday.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Tarantulas chuckled. Terrorsaur wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but at least he could still find humor when he was currently holding a bag of ice to the knot on his head.

“Now, I’ll let you all get back to work. Good luck, Terrorsaur,” Megatron smirked. He didn’t even leave, he just walked to the doorway of his office and leaned against it, apparently planning on watching Terrorsaur’s every move.

He had three other sets of eyes on him, too, and suddenly Terrorsaur found himself at a loss. “Uh… okay, well,” he said. “Scorponok, you go to Costco to get more flour while the rest of us clean up here.”

“Costco doesn’t open for another two hours,” Scorponok seethed.

Tarantulas cleared his throat. “Before we get into another argument, I do have something else I would like to discuss that concerned me this morning,” he said.

“Yeah?” Terrorsaur sighed. If he wanted an apology for the incident with Rattrap, he wasn’t getting one.

“Today is payday,” Tarantulas said.

“…yeah?” Terrorsaur prompted. He wasn’t a mindreader.

“I haven’t been paid,” Tarantulas finished. “Has anyone else?”

Terrorsaur honestly hadn’t checked his bank account in days. Was it seriously Friday already?

“Waspinator hasn’t,” Waspinator confirmed after checking his phone. He sounded sad.

“I was _ supposed _ to do payroll on Tuesday, but _ someone _ locked me out of the building and shot me with a paintball gun,” Scorponok huffed.

Tarantulas eyed Terrorsaur. “So, am I correct in assuming it didn’t get done?”

In the doorway, Megatron’s smirk grew.

“Uh…” Terrorsaur said eloquently. The truth was, it honestly hadn’t been on his radar at all. Which was stupid, probably. Terrorsaur liked getting paid as much as anyone else. “I had a lot going on this week, okay?”

“So we didn’t get paid because you _ had a lot going on,” _ Tarantulas repeated disdainfully. “What is the solution here?”

Terrorsaur had zero idea how payroll worked, he realized. He wasn’t even sure he understood what it was, to say nothing of figuring out how to do it. Scorponok knew, apparently, but could he fix it if the deadline had been missed? Was there a deadline?

Almost unconsciously, Terrorsaur turned to look at Megatron.

“I can fix it on Monday, if you don’t figure it out before then,” Megatron said. “I wouldn’t want to step on your toes.”

With dawning horror, Terrorsaur realized the game Megatron was playing. He could feel the glares of his coworkers on him like lasers in his skull as they probably contemplated tearing him apart and selling his organs on the black market for rent money, but all he saw was Megatron’s smug grin.

That absolute bastard.

* * *

The first few minutes of the ride back to the Maximal Bakery were exceedingly uncomfortable. Dinobot, Rattrap and Cheetor were squished into the back of Optimus’s car, and nobody wanted to be the first one to say anything.

Rhinox was the first one to finally break the silence. He twisted in his seat to fix Rattrap with a hard look. “Would anyone like to explain what all that was about?” he asked.

“Well…” Rattrap said hesitantly.

“I agreed to it. Rattrap didn’t do anything he didn’t ask permission for,” Optimus said. “The Predacon had a job opening, and there have been certain things happening around here that clearly point to an information breach. When we found out about it, we decided to do a little undercover investigation.”

“And I found it,” Rattrap said proudly. He fished around in the backpack sitting on his lap and pulled out what looked like an old military receiver. “This thing is hooked up to a mic somewhere in the kitchen. We just gotta go back and figure out where.”

“When I tried to figure out what was going on at The Predacon, it was this whole thing,” Cheetor protested. “How come Rattrap gets to and it’s fine?”

“Again, Rattrap came to talk to me first,” Optimus said.

“That’s all fine and dandy, but I don’t get why it had to be a big secret,” Rhinox said reproachfully. The fact that he was sour about the whole thing was a little bit of a comfort—it hadn’t been kept from Dinobot alone, at least.

The answer to Rhinox’s question hit Dinobot fully in the face. “Because they thought it was me, and they didn’t want me to find out he was playing double agent,” he said.

It was quiet for a beat.

“I didn’t think that, but keeping it quiet seemed like the safest way,” Optimus said. He was looking forward at the road in front of him, so Dinobot could only guess at his expression. “I know it was a bad couple of days for everyone, and I’m sorry for that. We won’t do it again.”

The car was silent as Optimus pulled into the parking lot and parked, and finally the five of them were able to pile out of the car. Dinobot had a lot of work to catch up on and was even less in the mood for idle chit-chat as he had been. He got right to work while keeping one eye on the others in their quest for the hidden microphone. Finally, they found the thing embedded in the ceiling, where it only could have been placed before they’d even officially moved in. An impressive long game on Megatron’s part, and one he hadn’t told Dinobot anything about. Who knew what other secrets he’d kept?

Dinobot wasn’t expecting Rattrap to sidle up to his workspace later that morning. Honestly, he’d expected Rattrap to go home and take a nap, after hearing more of the details of what he’d been through.

“Just for the record, _ I _ thought it was you,” he said.

“Thank you,” Dinobot said flatly, focusing on his work rather than the vermin invading his space. “I’m well aware that I am never going to meet with your approval, nor do I care to.”

“Calm down and let me talk, Stinkbreath,” Rattrap snapped. “I thought it was you, and I looked all over that stupid bakery for evidence. I didn’t find anything, and nobody ever mentioned you.”

Dinobot paused and turned to look at Rattrap, eyes narrowed. “And?”

“And I _ still _ don’t trust you,” Rattrap said defensively. “But… I guess you’re either innocent, or a _ really _ well-engineered double agent. And judging from the sort of incompetence I saw from those guys, I’m not putting my bets on that one.”

…Huh. It almost seemed like Rattrap was apologizing to him, in a roundabout way.

He set a couple of small cardboard boxes on the table. On further inspection, they were... red and blue cupcake papers. "I stole these. The Predacan had tons of them," he said hurriedly. "I've still got my eye on you, so don't get too cocky."

“I wouldn’t expect anything different,” Dinobot said. Rattrap seemed satisfied with that, and slunk off to do whatever else it was Rattrap did when he wasn’t getting on Dinobot’s nerves.

Dinobot looked at the gift in astonishment. These would likely be plenty for the weekend. It wasn't quite a peace offering, but... it wasn't unwelcome.

He and Rattrap were never going to get along, that much was certain. But if Dinobot could avoid having his every move scrutinized as that of a possible traitor, he had to admit that would improve his quality of life significantly.

Dinobot glanced across the kitchen to where his coworkers were huddled together, where Optimus and Rhinox were demonstrating how to score a baguette for Cheetor and Rattrap was critiquing all of their form. Rhinox and Cheetor hadn’t believed Rattrap could have switched sides, even when all evidence pointed to the contrary by design. They had simply refused, too confident in Rattrap to think him capable of such a betrayal.

He wondered, briefly, if any of Dinobot’s old coworkers had felt the same way about his own resignation and switch. If they had, none of them had communicated such to him. He hadn’t really spoken with any of them at all, since then. Had any of them been upset by his actions? Had any of them cared?

There was no use dwelling on that. Dinobot put the thought of it out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, you should share it on [tumblr](https://yeastwars.tumblr.com/post/631010322639208448/chapters-636-fandom-transformers-all-media) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/miniconsuffrage/status/1312582496194908161?s=20)! (And maybe consider [following me](https://miniconsuffrage.tumblr.com/), or [the YW tumblr](https://yeastwars.tumblr.com/)! I don't use it as much, but I do post writing updates there and I'm trying to be more consistent.)


End file.
